MRS.  FARRELL 


BOOKS  BY  W.  D.  HOWELLS 


Annie  Kilburn. 

April  Hopes. 

Between  the  Dark  and  Daylight.     New 

Edition. 

Boy  Life.     Illustrated. 
Boy's   Town.     Illustrated. 
Certain     Delightful     English     Towns. 

Illustrated. 

Traveler's  Edition,  Leather. 
Christmas    Every     Day,     and     Other 

Stories. 

Holiday  Edition.     Illustrated. 
Coast  of  Bohemia.    Illustrated. 
Criticism  and  Fiction.     Portrait. 
Daughter  of  the  Storage. 
Day    of    Their    Wedding.     Illustrated. 
Familiar  Spanish  Travels.     Illustrated. 
Fennel    and    Rue.     Illustrated.     New 

Edition. 

Flight  of  Pony  Baker. 
Hazard  of  New  Fortunes.     New  Edi 
tion. 
Heroines    of    Fiction.     Illustrated. 

2  vols. 

Hither     and     Thither     In     Germany. 
Imaginary  Interviews. 
Imperative  Duty. 

Paper. 
Impressions     and     Experiences.     New 

Edition. 
Kentons. 
Landlord  at  Lion's  Head.     Illustrated. 

New  Edition. 
Letters  Home. 
Literary  Friends  and  Acquaintance. 

Illustrated. 
Literature  and  Life. 
Little    Swiss    Sojourn.     Illustrated. 
London  Films.     Illustrated. 

Traveler's  Edition,  Leather. 
Miss    Bollard's    Inspiration. 
Modern     Italian     Poets.     Illustrated. 
Mother  and   the   Father.     Illustrated. 

New  Edition. 
Mrs.  Farrell 


My  Literary  Passions.     New  Edition. 

My    Mark    Twain.      Illustrated. 

My  Year  in  a  Log  Cabin.     Illustrated. 

Open-Eyed  Conspiracy. 

Pair  of  Patient  Lovers. 

Quality     of      Mercy.     New     Edition. 

Questionable    Shapes.     Ill'd. 

Ragged  Lady.      Illustrated.     New  Edi 
tion. 

Roman  Holidays.     Illustrated. 
Traveler's  Edition,  Leather. 

Seen  and  Unseen  at  Stratford 

Seven  English  Cities.     Illustrated. 
Traveler's   Edition,  Leather. 

Shadow  of  a   Dream. 

Son  of  Royal    Langbrith. 

Stops   of    Various    Quills.     Illustrated. 
Limited  Edition. 

Story  of  a  Play. 

The  Vacation  of  the  Kelwyns 

Their  Silver  Wedding  Journey.     Illus 
trated.     2  vols. 
In    1    vol.      New    Edition. 

Through  the  Eye  of  a  Needle.     New 
Edition. 

Traveller    from    Altruria.     New    Edi 
tion. 

World  of  Chance. 

Years  of  My  Youth.     Illustrated  Edi 
tion. 


FARCES: 

A  Letter  of  Introduction.     Illustrated 
A    Likely    Story.     Illustrated 
A    Previous    Engagement. 

Paper. 

Evening  Dress.     Illustrated. 
Five-o' Clock  Tea.      Illustrated. 
Parting    Friends.      Illustrated. 
The  Albany  Depot.    Illustrated. 
The     Garroters.      Illustrated. 
The  Mouse-Trap.     Illustrated. 
The    Unexpected    Guests.     Illustrated. 


HARPER  &  BROTHERS,  PUBLISHERS,  NEW  YORK 
ESTABLISHED  1817 


MRS.   FARRELL 

A  NOVEL  BY 
WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS 


With  an  Introduction  by 
Mildred    Howells 


HARPER    &    BROTHERS    PUBLISHERS 

NEW    YORK    AND     LONDON 


MRS.  FARRELL 


Copyright,  1921,  by  Harper  &  Brothers 
Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 
G-V 


INTRODUCTION 

THIS  story  of  my  father's  was  first  printed  under 
the  title  of  Private  Theatricals  in  the  Atlantic 
Monthly  of  1875,  while  he  was  still  editor  of  the 
magazine.  It  appeared  a  few  years  after  Henry 
James's  Gabrielle  de  Bergerac,  and  neither  of  the 
two  short  novels  was  ever  republished  by  their 
authors.  My  father's  must  have  been  written  in 
the  Concord  Avenue  house  in  Cambridge  which 
he  and  my  mother  had  just  built  and  moved  into. 
They  were  very  proud  of  the  new  house,  even  of  its 
mansard  roof  such  as  every  house  of  the  period  was 
obliged  to  have,  and  which  is  reflected  in  the  newly 
added  French  roofs  of  some  of  the  houses  near  the 
church  in  West  Pekin;  but  their  greatest  pride 
was  in  the  library.  My  impressions  of  the  house 
are  those  of  rather  extreme  youth,  but  I  can  re 
member  that  it  was  lined  with  bookshelves  bor 
dered  by  bands  of  red,  scalloped  leather  that  were 
meant,  as  I  now  suppose,  to  keep  the  dust  from 
the  book  tops  but  which  were  then  pleasantly 
mysterious  to  the  infant  mind.  There  were  very 
satisfactory  tiles  of  Eastlake  tendencies  over  the 
fireplace,  picturing  the  seasons  in  yellow  and 
brown,  and  a  vast  flat-topped  desk  in  the  middle 
of  the  room  with  rows  of  drawers  on  either  side 


72027 


INTRODUCTION 

that  went  down  to  the  floor,  leaving  a  dark  hole 
between  them,  which  was  useful  as  a  doll's  house 
when  not  occupied  by  my  father's  feet.  The  room 
was  at  the  back  of  the  house,  for  greater  quiet,  and 
looked  out  into  a  deep,  grassy  yard  divided  down 
the  center  by  a  hedge  of  lilacs,  and  only  invaded 
by  birds  and  children. 

The  background  of  Mrs.  Farrell  is  the  New  Eng 
land  farm  boarding  house,  which  was  the  only 
form  of  simple  country  sojourn  before  summer 
cottages  were  imagined,  and  it  is  interesting  to 
compare  it  with  the  farm  boarding  in  The  Vacation 
of  the  Kelwyns,  written  so  many  years  after  and 
giving  a  much  fuller  study  of  the  country  people. 
The  farmhouse  of  this  story,  kept  by  the  finer  type 
of  New  England  farmers,  must,  I  think,  have  been 
the  sort  of  summer  place  that  my  parents  were  al 
ways  seeking,  and  the  Kelwyns'  experience  a  pic 
ture  of  what  they  more  often  found.  In  the  latter 
book  the  country  people  are  of  much  poorer  stuff 
than  the  Woodwards,  but  one  feels  in  his  handling 
of  them  the  greater  tenderness  and  understanding 
that  age  teaches,  and  youth,  no  matter  how  sym 
pathetic,  cannot  compass. 

During  the  later  summers,  while  we  still  lived  in 
Cambridge,  we  tried  many  different  kinds  of  farm 
board,  and  I  wish  I  could  remember  more  of  them 
for  comparison  with  those  of  Mrs.  Farrell  and  the 
Kelwyns,  but  I  can  only  recall  one  of  all  our  land 
ladies,  a  good-natured  farmer's  wife,  so  stout  that 
her  apron  strings  only  appeared  where  they  were 
tied  behind  her.  I  made  many  solemn  journeys 

vi 


INTRODUCTION 

around  her  in  search  of  them,  and  I  think  it  must 
have  always  been  while  she  was  frying  doughnuts, 
for  that  act  is  firmly  associated  in  my  mind  with 
her  invisible  apron  strings.  I  was  also  vaguely  con 
scious  of  a  feud  that  raged  between  our  hosts  and 
their  relations,  over  a  family  Bible  that  had  re 
versed  the  squaring  of  the  circle  by  having  its 
corners  worn  off  until  it  was  quite  round.  It  had 
been  borrowed  and  wrongfully  detained  by  a 
younger  branch  of  the  family,  leaving  hatred  and 
uncharitableness  behind.  These  reflections,  I  am 
afraid,  do  not  throw  any  great  light  on  the  prac 
tical  conditions  of  farm  boarding,  but  they  are 
all  I  have. 

It  is  amusing  to  one  who  started  life  in  the 
eighteen-seventies,  to  see  it  again  from  their  angle 
in  these  pages  written  not  only  about  them,  but  in 
them.  One  notes  with  surprise,  after  the  feminine 
activity  of  the  present,  the  general  resignation  of 
even  faintly  middle-aged  ladies  to  headaches  and 
invalidism,  and  the  walks  taken  through  woods 
and  meadows  in  trailing  draperies.  The  painting 
of  cat-tails  emerges  from  a  very  dead  past,  and 
even  the  more  modern  charcoal  head  of  Blossom 
brings  back  the  day  of  William  Hunt's  classes, 
when  charcoal  heads  prevailed,  and  every  Boston 
young  lady  of  artistic  taste  longed  to  be  among  his 
pupils.  Rachel  Woodward's  little  red  schoolhouse 
must  be  deserted  to-day  and  quietly  dropping 
apart  on  its  country  road,  as  so  many  others  are 
doing  now  that  their  scholars  have  been  concen 
trated  in  big  graded  schools;  but  her  practical  view 

vii 


INTRODUCTION 

of  her  own  talent  and  her  firmness  in  returning 
what  she  thought  more  than  her  drawings  worth 
to  Mrs.  Gilbert  are  of  no  epoch,  but  still  endure  in 
the  New  England  character,  unalterable  as  its 
native  granite.  Coming  from  southern  Ohio,  my 
father  could,  perhaps,  see  the  New  England  people 
more  clearly  than  if  he  had  been  one  of  them,  and 
the  Woodward  family  gives  what  he  felt  and  valued 
in  their  stern  uprightness  and  self-restraint. 

The  echoes  of  the  Civil  War,  in  the  injustice  of 
Easton's  advancement  in  military  rank  over  the 
head  of  his  friend,  come  strangely  to  us  who  have 
just  lived  through  another  terrible  conflict  which 
has  left  this  world  weary  and  discouraged.  In 
speaking  of  the  two  wars,  my  father  said  that  a 
great  difference  lay  in  the  spirit  that  came  after 
them,  for  when  the  Civil  War  was  done  people  in 
the  North  felt  that  all  the  troubles  of  the  world 
were  over,  and  that  in  the  future  everything  was 
going  to  be  right.  Easton's  ideas  about  hunting 
and  fishing,  and  his  desire  to  help  the  helpless,  are 
a  reflection,  I  think,  of  the  writer's  own  feelings; 
and  in  the  scene  where  Easton  stops  the  rearing 
horse  one  wonders  whether  there  survive  faint 
traces  of  those  early  literary  traditions  that  made 
my  father,  as  he  once  said,  feel  when  he  began 
writing  novels  that  he  must  have  his  hero  do  some 
thing  to  win  the  heroine,  like  rescuing  her  from  a 
wild  bull,  until  he  observed  that  in  real  life  nothing 
of  the  sort  was  necessary.  His  minute  study  of 
Easton's  emotions  as  a  lover  makes  one  feel  the 
sympathetic  interest  of  a  writer  who  was  young 

viii 


INTRODUCTION 

enough  to  go  fully  into  them,  and  form  a  tempta 
tion  to  quote  from  a  letter  written  in  his  later 
middle  age,  in  which  he  says,  "I  do  not  think  I 
can  ever  write  of  mating  and  marriage  again." 

Mrs.  Gilbert's  desire  in  her  first  talk  with  Mrs. 
Farrell  of  "a  good  stupid  wooing — at  least  a  year 
of  it"  for  her,  shows  an  early  distrust  of  Romance 
as  a  foundation  for  life,  but  in  their  second  talk 
together  Mrs.  Farrell's  answer,  "  Nothing  that's 
wrong  can  be  one's  own  affair,  I  suppose :  it  belongs 
to  the  whole  world,"  is  of  his  latest,  as  well  as  his 
earliest  philosophy. 

MILDRED  HOWELLS. 


MRS.  FARRELL 


MRS.   FARRELL 


Chapter   I 

WEST  PEKIN  is  one  of  those  country 
places  which  have  yielded  to  changing 
conditions  and  have  ceased  to  be  the 
simple  farming  towns  of  a  past  generation.  The  peo 
ple  are  still  farmers,  but  most  of  them  are  no  longer 
fanners  only.  In  the  summer  they  give  up  the 
habitable  rooms  of  their  old  square  wooden  houses 
to  boarders  from  the  cities,  and  lurk  about  in  the 
nooks  and  crannies  of  their  L's  and  lean-to's;  and, 
whatever  their  guests  may  have  to  complain  of, 
have  hardly  the  best  of  the  bargains  they  drive  with 
them.  But  in  this  way  they  eke  out  the  living 
grudged  them  by  their  neglected  acres,  and  keep 
their  houses  in  a  repair  that  contrasts  with  the  decay 
of  their  farming.  Each  place  has  its  grove  of 
maples,  fantastically  gnarled  and  misshapen  from 
the  wounds  of  many  sugar  seasons;  and  an  apple 
orchard,  commonly  almost  past  bearing  with  age, 
stretches  its  knotted  boughs  over  a  slope  near  the 
house.  Every  year  the  men-folk  plow  up  an  area 
of  garden  ground,  and  plant  it  with  those  vegetables 
which,  to  the  boarders  still  feeding  in  mid-  July  on 
l  i 


MRS.   FARRELL 


last  year's  potatoes  and  tough,  new-butchered  beef, 
seem  so  reluctant  in  ripening;  but  a  furrow  is 
hardly  turned  elsewhere  on  the  farm.  It  yields  a 
crop  of  hay  about  the  end  of  June,  in  which  the 
boarders'  children  tumble,  and  a  favorable  season 
may  coax  from  it  a  few  tons  of  rowen  grass.  The 
old  stone  walls  straggle  and  fall  down  even  along 
the  roadside ;  in  the  privacy  of  the  wood  lots  and 
berry  pastures  they  abandon  themselves  to  reckless 
dilapidation. 

Many  houses  in  the  region  stand  empty,  absently 
glaring  on  the  passer  with  their  cold  windows,  as 
if  striving  in  vain  to  recall  the  households,  long 
since  gone  West,  to  whom  they  were  once  homes. 
By  and  by  they  will  drop  to  ruin;  or  some  shrewd 
Irishman,  who  has  made  four  or  five  hundred  dollars 
in  a  Massachusetts  suburb,  will  buy  one  of  them, 
and,  stocking  the  farm  with  his  stout  boys  and  girls, 
will  have  the  best-looking  place  about.  He  thrives 
where  the  son  of  the  soil  starved;  and  if  the  bitter 
truth  must  be  owned,  he  seems  to  deserve  his  better 
fortune.  He  has  enterprise  and  energy  and  in 
dustry,  and  to  the  summer  boarder,  used  to  the 
drive  and  strain  of  the  city,  the  Yankee  farmer 
often  seems  to  have  none  of  these  qualities.  It  may 
be  that  the  summer  boarder  judges  him  rashly; 
I  dare  say  he  would  not  be  willing  himself  to  take 
his  landlord's  farm  as  a  gift,  if  he  must  live  on  those 
stony  hillsides  the  year  round,  and  find  himself  at 
each  year's  end  a  year  older  but  not  a  day  nearer 
the  competence  to  which  all  men  look  forward 
as  the  just  reward  of  long  toil.  I  always  fancied  a 


MRS.  FARRELL 

dull  discouragement  in  the  native  farming  race; 
an  effect  of  the  terrible  winter  that  drowns  a  good 
half  of  the  months  in  drifts  of  snow,  and  of  the 
dreary  solitude  of  the  country  life.  Great  men 
have  come  from  the  rural  stock  in  our  nation  be 
fore  now;  and  perhaps  the  people  of  West  Pekin 
have  earned  the  right  to  lie  fallow;  but  whether 
this  is  so  or  not,  it  is  certain  that  they  often  evince 
an  aptness  to  open  the  mouth  and  stand  agape  at 
unusual  encounters,  which  one  cannot  well  dis 
sociate  from  ideas  of  a  complete  mental  repose. 
If  they  have  no  thoughts,  they  have  not  the 
irrelevance  and  superfluity  of  words.  They  are  a 
signally  silent  race.  I  have  seen  two  of  them,  old 
neighbors,  meet  after  an  absence,  and  when  they 
had  hornily  rattled  their  callous  palms  together, 
stand  staring  at  each  other,  their  dry,  serrated  lips 
falling  apart,  their  jaws  mutely  working  up  and 
down,  their  pale-blue  eyes  vacantly  winking,  and 
their  weather-beaten  faces  as  wholly  discharged  of 
expression  as  the  gable  ends  of  two  barns  confront 
ing  each  other  from  opposite  sides  of  the  road;  no 
figure  can  portray  the  grotesqueness  of  their  per 
sons,  with  their  feet  thrust  into  their  heavy  boots, 
and  their  clothes — originally  misshapen  in  a  slop 
shop  after  some  bygone  fashion,  and  now  curiously 
warped,  outgrown,  outworn — climbing  up  their 
legs  and  mounting  upon  their  stooping  shoulders. 
But  if  they  are  silent  they  are  not  surly ;  give  them 
time  and  they  are  amiable  enough,  and  they  are 
first  and  last  honest.  They  do  not  ask  too  much 
for  board,  and  they  show  some  slow  willingness  to 

3 


MRS.  FARRELL 

act  upon  a  boarder's  suggestions  for  his  greater 
comfort.  But  otherwise  they  remain  unaffected 
by  the  contact.  They  learn  no  greater  glibness  of 
tongue,  or  liveliness  of  mind,  or  grace  of  manner; 
if  their  city  guests  bring  with  them  the  vices  of 
wine  or  beer  at  dinner  and  tobacco  after  it,  the 
farmers  keep  themselves  uncontaminate.  The  only 
pipe  you  smell  is  that  of  the  neighboring  Irishman 
as  he  passes  with  his  ox-team ;  the  gypsying  French 
Canadians,  as  they  wander  southward,  tipsy  by 
whole  families,  in  their  rickety  open  buggies,  lend 
the  sole  bacchanal  charm  to  the  prospect  that  it 
knows.  These  are  of  a  race  whose  indomitable 
light-heartedness  no  rigor  of  climate  has  appalled, 
whereas  our  Anglo-Saxon  stock  in  many  country 
neighborhoods  of  New  England  seems  weather- 
beaten  in  mind  as  in  face;  and  this  may  account 
for  the  greater  quick-wittedness  of  the  women, 
whose  indoor  life  is  more  protected  from  the 
inclemency  of  our  skies.  It  is  certain  that  they 
are  far  readier  than  the  men,  more  intelligent, 
gracious,  and  graceful,  and  with  their  able  con 
nivance  the  farmer  stays  the  adversity  creeping 
upon  his  class,  if  he  does  not  retrieve  its  old  pros 
perity.  In  the  winter  his  daughters  teach  school, 
and  in  the  summer  they  help  their  mother  through 
her  enterprise  of  taking  boarders.  The  farm  feeds 
them  all,  but  from  the  women's  labor  comes  thrice 
the  ready  money  that  the  land  ever  yields,  and  it  is 
they  who  keep  alive  the  sense  of  all  higher  and  finer 
things,  Heaven  knows  with  what  heroic  patience 
and  devotecl  endeavor.  The  house  Chines,  through 

4 


MRS.   FARRELL 

them,  with  fresh  paper  and  paint;  year  by  year 
they  add  to  those  comforts  and  meek  aspirations 
toward  luxury  which  the  summer  guest  accepts  so 
lightly  when  he  comes,  smiling  askance  at  the 
parlor  organ  in  the  corner,  and  the  black-walnut- 
framed  chromo-lithographs  on  the  walls. 

Nehemiah  Woodward  left  West  Pekin  in  his 
youth,  after  his  preparation  in  the  academy,  which 
still  rests  its  classic  pediment  upon  a  pair  of  fluted 
pine  pillars  above  the  village  green,  and  went  to 
Andover,  where  he  studied  divinity  and  married 
his  landlady's  daughter.  She  was  a  still,  some 
what  austere  girl,  and  she  had  spread  no  lures  for 
the  affections  of  her  lover,  who  was  of  tenderer 
years  than  herself;  he  was  not  her  first  love; 
perhaps  he  was  at  last  rather  her  duty,  or  her 
importuning  fate.  In  any  case  she  did  not  deny  him 
in  the  end;  they  were  married  after  his  ordination 
and  went  away  to  the  parish  in  New  York  State 
over  which  he  was  settled,  and  she  left  behind  her 
the  grave  in  which  the  hopes  of  her  youth  were 
buried.  The  young  minister  knew  about  it;  she 
told  him  everything  when  he  first  spoke  to  her  of 
marriage;  they  went  together  to  bid  farewell  to  the 
last  resting  place  of  the  dead  rival  whom  he  had 
never  seen ;  and  his  sublime  generosity  touched  her 
heart  with  a  lifelong  gratitude. 

It  was  his  only  inspiration,  poor  soul!  he  was  a 
dreadfully  dull  man — too  dull  even  for  the  in 
articulate  suffering  of  country  congregations.  Parish 
after  parish  shifted  him  from  its  aching  shoulders; 

5 


MRS.   FARRELL 

they  loved  him  for  his  goodness,  but  they  could  not 
endure  him,  they  hardly  knew  why;  it  was  really 
because  his  sermons  were  of  lead,  and  finally  none 
the  lighter  that  they  were  beaten  out  so  thin.  He 
had  thus  worn  westward,  leaving  a  deeply  striated 
human  surface  behind  him,  in  the  line  of  the  New 
England  emigration,  as  far  as  to  the  farther  border 
of  Iowa,  and  he  was  an  elderly  man  with  a  half- 
grown  family,  when  his  father  died  and  left  the 
ancestral  farm  at  West  Pekin,  to  which  none  of  the 
other  sons  would  return  from  their  prosperity  in  the 
neighboring  towns  or  the  new  countries  where  they 
had  settled.  But  it  was  not  a  fortune  that  Nehe- 
miah  could  refuse;  possibly  he  had  always  had  his 
own  secret  yearnings  for  those  barren  pastures  of 
his  boyhood ;  at  any  rate,  he  gladly  parted  from  his 
last  willing  parish  and  went  back  to  the  farm. 
Once  returned,  he  seemed  never  to  have  been  away ; 
he  looked  as  much  a  fixture  of  the  landscape  as  any 
outbuilding  of  the  place.  He  quickly  shed  what 
ever  clerical  dignity  had  belonged  to  his  outward 
man,  and  slouched  into  the  rusty  boots  and  scare 
crow  coats  and  hats  that  costume  our  farmers  at 
their  work,  as  easily  as  if  he  had  only  laid  them 
off  overnight.  The  physical  shape  of  the  farm  was 
favorable  to  his  luckless  gift  of  going  downhill, 
but  the  energy  of  his  wife  now  stayed  his  further 
descent  as  effectually  as  if  he  had  been  a  log  propped 
on  the  edge  of  a  slope  by  some  jutting  point  of 
granite.  She  had  indeed  always  done  more  than 
her  half  toward  keeping  her  family's  souls  and  bodies 
together;  now,  with  a  lasting  basis  to  work  upon, 

6 


MRS.  FARRELL 

she  took  the  share  on  which  Nehemiah's  lax  hold 
had  faltered.  The  house  was  built  with  the  sub 
stantial  handsomeness  which  a  farmer  could  afford 
who  two  generations  ago  sent  his  boys  to  the 
academy.  It  was  large  and  square,  with  ample  halls 
crossing  each  other  from  side  to  side,  and  dividing 
it  into  four  spacious  rooms  below  and  answering 
chambers  overhead,  some  of  which,  after  a  season 
or  two  of  summer  boarders,  Mrs.  Woodward  was 
able  to  cut  in  two  and  still  leave  large  enough  for 
single  beds.  In  time  a  series  of  very  habitable 
chambers  grew  out  over  the  one-story  wing;  a 
broad  new  piazza  invited  the  breeze  and  shade 
around  two  sides  of  the  house,  from  whose  hilltop 
perch  you  could  look  out  over  a  sea  of  rolling  fields 
and  woods,  steeply  shored  on  the  south  by  the  long 
flank  of  Scatticong  Mountain.  The  air  was  a 
luxury,  the  water  was  delicious;  the  walks  and 
drives  through  the  white-birch  groves  were  lovely 
beyond  compare;  and  long  before  the  summer  of 
which  I  write,  the  fame  of  Mrs.  Woodward's  abun 
dant  table  and  educated  kitchen  had  made  it  a 
privilege  to  be  her  boarders  for  which  people  en 
deavored  by  engaging  her  rooms  a  year  beforehand. 
Whoever  abode  there  reported  it  a  house  flow 
ing  with  unstinted  cream  and  eggs;  peas,  beans, 
squash,  and  sweet  corn  in  their  season,  of  a  flavor 
that  the  green  grocery  never  knew;  blueberries, 
raspberries,  blackberries,  after  their  kind;  and 
bread  with  whose  just  praise  one  must  hesitate  to 
tax  the  credulity  of  one's  hearer. 

Mrs.  Woodward  not  only  knew  how  to  serve  her 
7 


MRS.   FARRELL 

guests  well,  but  how  to  profit  by  serving  them  well. 
She  made  it  her  business,  and  mixed  no  sentiment 
of  any  sort  with  it.  She  abolished  herself  socially 
and  none  of  her  boarders  offered  her  slight  at  the 
point  to  which  she  retreated  from  association  with 
them.  She  left  them  perfect  freedom  in  the  house, 
but  she  kept  them  rigidly  distinct  from  her  own 
family,  whom  she  devoted  each  in  his  or  her  way 
to  the  enterprise  she  had  undertaken.  The  family 
ate  at  their  own  table,  and  never  appeared  in  the 
guests'  quarter  except  upon  some  affair  connected 
with  their  comfort;  but  they  were  all  willing  in 
serving.  Even  Nehemiah  himself,  under  the  disci 
pline  centering  in  his  wife,  showed  a  sort  of  stiff  - 
jointed  readiness  in  hitching  up  the  horse  for  the 
ladies  when  the  boys  happened  to  be  out  of  the 
way ;  and  he  had  thus  late  in  life  discovered  a  genius 
for  gardening.  It  was  to  his  skill  and  industry  that 
the  table  owed  its  luxury  of  vegetables ;  and  he  was 
wont  to  walk  out  at  twilight,  and  stand,  bent-kneed 
and  motionless,  among  the  potatoes,  and  look  stead 
fastly  upon  the  peas,  in  serene  emulation  of  the 
simulacrum  posted  in  a  like  attitude  in  another  part 
of  the  patch.  He  was  the  most  approachable  mem 
ber  of  the  family,  and  would  willingly  have  talked 
with  one,  no  doubt,  if  he  could  have  found  anything 
in  the  world  to  say.  The  others  were  civil,  but 
invisibly  held  aloof  by  the  mother's  theory  of  busi 
ness,  or  secret  pride,  which,  whatever  it  was,  inter 
fered  with  no  one's  rights  or  pleasures,  and  so  was 
generally  accepted  by  amiable  newcomers  after  a 
few  good-natured  attempts  to  overcome  it.  There 


MRS.  FARRELL 

was  only  one  of  them  who  had  succeeded  in  breaking 
the  circle  of  this  reserve,  and  her  intimacy  with  the 
Woodwards  seemed  rather  another  of  her  oddities 
than  anything  characteristic  of  them. 

The  household  of  the  boarders  displayed  that 
disparity  between  the  sexes  which  is  one  of  the  sad 
problems  of  the  New  England  civilization,  and  per 
haps  enforced  it  a  little  more  poignantly  than  was 
just.  They  were  not  all  single  ladies;  a  good  third 
of  the  fifteen  were  married;  of  the  rest,  some  were 
yet  too  young  to  think  or  to  despair  of  marrying, 
and  it  could  not  be  confidently  said  of  others  that 
they  wished  to  change  their  state.  Nevertheless, 
one's  first  sense  of  their  condition  was  vaguely  com 
passionate.  It  seemed  a  pity  that  for  six  days  in 
the  week  they  should  have  to  talk  to  one  another 
and  dress  only  for  their  own  sex.  Not  that  their 
toilettes  were  elaborate;  they  all  said  that  they 
liked  to  come  to  the  Woodwards'  because  you  did 
not  have  to  dress  there,  but  could  go  about  just  as 
you  pleased;  yet,  having  the  taste  of  all  American 
women  in  dress,  they  could  not  forbear  making 
themselves  look  charming,  and  were  always  appear 
ing  in  some  surprising  freshness  and  fragrance  of 
linen,  or  some  gayety  of  flannel  walking  costume. 
The  same  number  of  men  would  have  lapsed  into 
unshaven  chins  and  unblacked  boots  in  a  single 
week;  but  these  devoted  women  had  their  pretty 
looks  on  their  consciences,  and  never  failed  to  honor 
them.  Some  of  them  even  wore  flowers  in  their  hair 
at  dinner — Heaven  knows  why;  and  the  young 
girls  were  always  coming  home  from  the  woods 

9 


MRS.   FARRELL 

with  nodding  plumes  of  bracken  in  their  hats,  and 
walking  out  in  the  dusk  with  coquettish  headgear 
on,  to  be  seen  by  no  one  more  important  than  some 
barefooted,  half-grown,  bashful  farm  boy  driving 
home  his  cows.  The  mothers  started  their  children 
out  every  morning  in  clean,  whole  clothes,  and  pa 
tiently  put  aside  at  night  the  grass-stained,  bat 
tered,  dusty,  dishonored  fragments.  Even  one  or 
two  eld  ladies  who  were  there  for  the  country  air 
were  zealous  to  be  neatly  capped.  The  common 
sentiment  seemed  to  be  that  as  you  never  knew 
what  might  happen,  you  ought  to  be  prepared  for  it. 
What  actually  happened  was  the  occasional  arrival 
of  the  stage  with  an  express  package  for  one  of  the 
boarders,  and  a  passenger  for  some  farmhouse  be 
yond,  who  at  very  rare  and  exciting  intervals  was  a 
man.  Once  a  day  the  young  ladies  went  down  to 
the  village  after  the  mail,  and  indulged  themselves 
with  the  spectacle  of  gentlemen  dismounting  from 
the  stage  at  the  hotel,  which  at  such  moments 
poured  forth  on  piazza  and  gallery  a  disheartening 
force  of  lady  boarders.  Regularly,  also,  at  ten 
o'clock  on  Saturday  night,  when  everybody  had 
gone  to  bed,  this  conveyance  drove  up  to  the  door 
of  the  farmhouse,  and  set  down  the  five  husbands 
of  five  of  the  married  ladies,  for  whom  it  called  again 
on  Monday  morning,  before  anybody  was  up. 
These  husbands  were  almost  as  unfailing  as  the  fish- 
balls  at  the  Sunday  breakfast;  and  when  any  one 
of  them  was  kept  in  Boston  it  made  a  great  talk; 
his  wife  had  got  word  from  him  why  he  could  not 
come;  or  she  had  not  got  word:  it  was  just  as  ex- 

10 


MRS.  FARRELL 

citing  in  either  case.  The  ladies  all  made  some 
attractive  difference  in  their  dress,  which  the  wives 
when  they  went  to  their  rooms  asked  the  husbands 
if  they  had  noticed,  and  which  the  husbands  had 
not  noticed,  to  a  man.  After  breakfast,  each  hus 
band  took  by  the  hand  the  child  or  two  which  his 
wife  had  scantly  provided  him  (a  family  of  four 
children  was  thought  pitiably  large,  and  a  marvel 
of  responsibility  to  the  mother) ,  and  went  off  to  the 
woods,  whence  he  returned  an  hour  before  dinner, 
and  read  the  evening  papers  which  he  had  brought 
up  in  his  pocket.  In  the  afternoon  he  was  reported 
asleep,  being  fatigued  by  the  ride  from  town  the 
day  before,  or  he  sat  and  smoked,  or  sometimes  went 
driving  with  his  family.  His  voice  as  the  household 
heard  it  next  morning  at  dawn  had  a  gayer  note 
than  at  any  other  time  in  the  last  thirty-eight  hours, 
and  his  wife,  coming  down  to  breakfast,  met  the 
regulation  jest  about  her  renewed  widowhood  with 
a  cheerfulness  that  was  apparently  sincere. 

It  may  not  have  been  so  dull  a  life  for  the  ladies 
as  men  would  flatter  themselves ;  they  all  seemed  to 
like  it,  and  not  a  woman  among  them  was  eager  to 
get  back  to  her  own  house  and  its  cares.  Perhaps 
the  remembrance  of  these  cares  was  the  secret  of 
her  present  content;  perhaps  women,  when  re 
manded  to  a  comparatively  natural  state,  are  more 
easily  satisfied  then  men.  It  is  certain  that  they  are 
always  enduring  extremes  of  ennui  that  appear  in 
tolerable  to  the  other  sex.  Here  at  Woodward  farm 
they  had  their  own  little  world,  which  I  dare  say 
was  all  the  better  and  kindlier  for  being  their  own. 

ii 


MRS.  FARRELL 

They  were  very  kind  to  one  another,  but  preferences 
and  friendships  necessarily  formed  themselves. 
Certain  ladies  were  habitually  visiting,  as  they 
called  it,  in  one  another's  rooms,  and  one  lady  on 
the  ground  floor  was  of  a  hospitable  genius  that  in 
vited  the  other  boarders  to  make  her  room  the 
common  lounging  and  gossiping  place.  Whoever 
went  in  or  out  stopped  there ;  and  the  mail,  when  it 
was  brought  from  the  post-office,  was  distributed 
and  mostly  read  and  talked  over,  there. 

Till  a  bed  was  put  into  the  parlor,  one  of  the 
young  ladies  used  to  play  a  very  little  on  the  organ 
after  breakfast  on  rainy  days.  One  of  the  married 
ladies,  who  had  no  children,  painted;  she  painted 
cat-tail  rushes,  generally;  not  very  like,  and  yet 
plainly  recognizable.  Another  embroidered;  she 
sat  with  her  work  in  the  wide  doorway,  and  those 
passing  her  used  to  stop  and  take  up  one  edge  of  it 
as  it  hung  from  her  fingers,  and  talk  very  seriously 
about  it,  and  tell  what  they  had  seen  of  the  kind. 
Some  of  them  were  always  writing  letters;  two  or 
three  had  a  special  gift  of  sleep,  both  before  and 
after  dinner,  which  distinguished  them  from  several 
nervous  ladies,  who  never  could  sleep  in  the  day 
time.  The  yoAng  girls  went  up  the  mountain  a 
good  deal  whenever  they  could  join  a  party;  twice 
when  one  of  their  brothers  came  from  the  city  they 
camped  out  on  t£e  mountain;  it  was  a  great  thing 
to  see  their  camp  fire  after  dusk;  once  they  came 
home  in  a  rain,  and  that  was  talk  for  two  days,  and 
always  a  joke  afterward.  They  had  a  lot  of  novels, 
not  very  new  to  our  generation,  which  they  read 

12 


MRS.  FARRELL 

aloud  to  one  another  sometimes ;  they  began  to  write 
a  novel  of  their  own,  each  contributing  a  chapter, 
but  I  believe  they  never  finished  it;  the  youngest 
kept  a  journal,  but  she  did  not  write  in  it  much. 
She  could  also  drive;  and  her  timid  elders  who 
rode  out  with  her  said  they  felt  almost  as  safe  with 
her  as  with  a  man.  All  the  ladies  said  that  the  air 
was  doing  them  a  great  deal  of  good,  and,  if  not, 
that  the  complete  rest  was  everything ;  none  of  them 
had  that  wornout  feeling  with  which  she  had  come ; 
if  any  did  not  pick  up  at  once,  she  was  told  that  she 
would  see  the  change  when  she  got  home  in  the 
fall.  Two  or  three,  in  the  meantime,  were  nearly 
always  sick  in  bed,  or  kept  from  meals  by  headache. 
From  time  to  time  the  well  ones  had  themselves 
weighed  at  the  village  store,  to  know  whether  they 
had  gained  or  lost.  They  all  talked  together  a  good 
deal  about  their  complaints,  of  which,  whether  they 
were  sick  or  well,  they  each  had  several. 

These  were  the  interests  and  occupations,  this 
the  life,  at  Woodward  farm,  to  the  entire  simplicity 
of  which  I  am  afraid  I  have  not  done  justice,  when 
a  thing  happened  that  complicated  the  situation 
and  for  the  moment  robbed  it  of  its  characteristic 
repose.  It  appears  that  while  Mrs.  Stevenson  was 
quietly  multiplying  cat-tail  rushes  in  her  cool, 
airy,  upstairs  room,  one  of  the  Woodward  girls, 
who  taught  school  and  in  vacation  waited  on  the 
boarders  at  the  table,  had  also  been  employed — 
somewhere  in  the  mysterious  L  part,  where  her 
family  bestowed  itself — on  a  work  of  art,  a  head 
of  the  Alderney  cow  known  to  the  whole  household 

13 


MRS.   FARRELL 

as  Blossom.  Whether  it  was  ever  meant  to  be  seen 
or  not  is  scarcely  certain ;  that  lady  who  alone  had 
the  intimacy  of  the  Woodwards  came  out  with  it 
from  the  kitchen  one  morning,  as  by  violence,  and 
showed  it  to  the  boarders  after  breakfast,  while 
they  still  loitered  at  the  table,  none  of  the  artist's 
kindred  appearing.  They  all  recognized  Blossom 
in  a  moment,  but  the  exhibitor  let  them  suffer  and 
guess  awhile  who  did  it.  Then  she  exploded  the 
fact  upon  them,  and  the  excitement  began  to  rise. 
They  said  that  it  was  a  real  Rosa  Bonheur;  and 
Mrs.  Stevenson,  who  was  indeed  in  another  line  of 
art  and  need  feel  no  envy,  set  her  head  on  ,one  side, 
held  the  picture  at  arm's  length  in  different  lights, 
and  pronounced  it  perfect,  simply  perfect,  for  a 
charcoal  sketch.  They  had  looked  at  it  in  a  group ; 
now  they  looked  at  it  singly  and  from  a  distance, 
cautioning  one  another  that  the  least  touch  would 
ruin  it.  Then  they  began  to  ask  the  exhibi tress  if 
she  had  known  of  Miss  Woodward's  gift  before, 
the  young  girls  listening  to  her  replies  with  some 
thing  of  the  zeal  and  reverence  they  felt  for  the 
artist.  At  last  they  said  Mrs.  Gilbert  must  see  it, 
and  followed  it  in  procession  to  the  room  of  the 
public-spirited  lady  on  the  first  floor.  She  had 
been  having  her  breakfast  in  bed,  and  now  sat  in  a 
berufHed,  sweet-scented  dishabille,  which  became 
her  pale,  middle-aged,  invalid  good  looks — her 
French-marquise  effect,  one  young  girl  called  it, 
Mrs.  Gilbert's  hair  being  quite  gray,  and  her  thick 
eyebrows  dark,  like  those  of  a  powdered  old-regime 
beauty.  They  set  the  drawing  on  her  chimney- 


MRS.   FARRELL 

piece,  and  she  considered  it  a  long  while  with  her 
hands  lying  in  her  lap.  "Yes,"  she  sighed  at  last, 
"it's  very  fair  indeed,  poor  thing." 

"Blossom  or  Rachel,  Mrs.  Gilbert?"  promptly 
demanded  the  lady  who  had  been  chaperoning  the 
picture,  with  a  tremor  of  humorous  appreciation 
at  the  corners  of  her  mouth,  and  a  quick  glance  of 
her  very  dark-brown  eyes. 

"Rachel,"  answered  Mrs.  Gilbert.  "Blossom  is 
a  blessed  cow.  But  a  woman  of  genius  in  a  New 
England  farmhouse  where  they  take  summer 
boarders — oh  dear  me!  Yes,  it's  quite  as  bad  as 
that,  I  should  say,"  she  added,  thoughtfully,  after 
another  stare  at  the  picture. 

"Quite." 

The  company  had  settled  and  perched  and  poised 
upon  the  different  pieces  of  furniture,  as  if  they  ex 
pected  Mrs.  Gilbert  to  go  on  talking;  but  she 
seemed  to  be  out  of  the  mood,  and  chose  rather  to 
listen  to  their  applauses  of  the  picture.  The  sum 
of  their  kindly  feeling  appeared  to  be  that  some 
thing  must  be  done  to  encourage  Miss  Woodward, 
but  they  were  not  certain  how  she  ought  to  be  en 
couraged,  and  they  began  to  stray  away  from  the 
subject  before  anything  was  concluded.  When  the 
surprise  had  been  drained  to  the  dregs,  a  natural  re 
action  began,  and  they  left  Mrs.  Gilbert  somewhat 
sooner  than  usual  and  with  signs  of  fatigue.  Pres 
ently  no  one  remained  but  the  lady  who  had  exhibited 
the  picture ;  her,  as  she  made  a  movement  to  take  it 
from  the  mantel,  Mrs.  Gilbert  stopped,  and  began 
to  ask  about  the  artistic  history  of  Miss  Woodward. 

15 


Chapter   II 

MRS.  BELLE  FARRELL,  one  of  the 
summer  boarders,  stood  waiting  at  the 
side  of  the  road  for  Rachel  Woodward, 
who  presently  appeared  on  the  threshold  of  the 
red  schoolhouse,  with  several  books  on  her  arm. 
It  was  Saturday  afternoon;  her  school  term  had 
ended  the  day  before,  and  she  had  returned  now 
for  some  property  of  hers  left  in  the  schoolhouse 
overnight.  She  laid  down  the  books  while  she 
locked  the  door  and  put  the  key  in  her  pocket,  and 
then  she  gathered  them  up  and  moved  somewhat 
languidly  toward  Mrs.  Farrell.  This  lady  was 
slender  enough  to  seem  of  greater  height  than  she 
really  was,  but  not  slender  enough  to  look  meager, 
and  she  wore  a  stuff  that  clung  to  her  shape,  and, 
without  defining  it  too  statuesquely,  brought  out 
all  its  stylirhness.  Her  dress  was  not  so  well  suited 
to  walking  along  country  roads  as  it  was  to  some 
pretty  effects  of  pose;  caught  with  the  left  hand, 
and  drawn  tightly  across  from  behind,  its  plaited 
folds  expanded  about  Mrs.  Farrell's  feet,  and  as 
she  turned  her  head  for  a  sidelong  glance  at  her 
skirt  it  made  her  look  like  a  lady  on  a  Japanese  fan. 
The  resemblance  was  heightened  by  Mrs.  Farrell's 
brunette  coloring  of  dusky  red  and  white,  and  very 
dark  eyes  and  hair;  but  for  the  rest  her  features 

16 


MRS.   FARRELL 

were  too  regular;  she  knitted  her  level  brows  under 
a  forehead  overhung  with  loose  hair  like  a  French 
painter's  fancy  of  a  Roman  girl  of  the  decadence, 
and  she  was  not  a  Buddhist  half  the  time.  This  af 
ternoon,  for  example,  she  had  in  the  hand  with  which 
she  swept  her  skirt  forward,  a  very  charming  little 
English  copy  of  Keble's  Christian  Year,  in  mouse- 
colored,  flexible  leather,  with  red  edges.  It  was  a 
book  that  she  had  carried  a  good  deal  that  summer. 
She  now  looked  up  and  down  the  road,  and,  seeing 
no  one  but  Rachel,  she  undid  her  attitude  and  pinned 
her  draperies  courageously  out  of  the  way.  '  *  Let  us 
go  home  through  the  berry  pasture,"  she  said,  and 
at  the  same  time  she  stepped  out  toward  the  bars 
of  the  meadow  with  a  stride  that  showed  the  elastic 
beauty  of  her  ankles  and  the  neat  fit  of  her  stout 
walking  shoes;  she  mounted  and  was  over  before 
the  country  girl  could  let  down  one  of  the  bars  and 
creep  through.  In  spite  of  Mrs.  Farrell's  stylish 
ness,  the  pasture  and  she  seemed  joyously  to  accept 
each  other  as  parts  of  nature;  as  she  now  lounged 
over  the  tough,  springy  knolls  and  leaped  from  one 
gray-lichened  rock  to  another,  and  glided  in  and 
out  of  the  sun-shotten  clumps  of  white  birches,  she 
suggested  a  well-millinered  wood  nymph  not  the 
least  afraid  of  satyrs ;  she  suffered  herself  to  whistle 
fragments  of  opera  as  she  stooped  from  time  to 
time  and  examined  the  low  bushes  to  see  if  there 
were  any  ripe  berries  yet.  Such  as  she  found  she 
ate  with  a  frank,  natural,  charming  greed;  but 
there  were  not  many  of  them. 

"We  shall  have  to  stick  to  custard  pie  for  another 
2  17 


MRS.  FARRELL 

week,"  she  said;  "I'm  glad  it's  so  good.  Don't 
let's  go  home  at  once,  Rachel.  Sit  down  and  have  a 
talk,  and  I'll  help  you  through  afterward,  or  get 
you  out  of  the  trouble  somehow.  Halt!"  she 
commanded. 

The  girl  showed  a  conscientious  hesitation,  while 
Mrs.  Farrell  sank  down  at  the  base  of  a  bowlder 
on  which  the  sunset  had  been  shining.  The  day  was 
one  of  that  freshness  which  comes  often  enough  to 
the  New  England  hills  even  late  in  July;  Mrs. 
Farrell  leaned  back  with  her  hands  clasped  behind 
her  head,  and  closed  her  eyes  in  luxury.  "Oh,  you 
nice  old  rock,  you!  How  warm  you  are  to  a  per 
son's  back!" 

Rachel  crouched  somewhat  primly  near  her,  with 
her  books  on  her  knee,  and  glanced  with  a  slight 
anxiety  at  the  freedom  of  Mrs.  Farrell 's  self -disposi 
tion,  whose  signal  grace  might  well  have  justified 
its  own  daring. 

"Rachel,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  subtly  interpreting 
her  expression,  "you're  almost  as  modest  as  a  man; 
I'm  always  putting  you  to  the  blush.  There,  will 
that  do  any  better?"  she  asked,  modifying  her  pos 
ture.  She  gazed  into  the  young  girl's  face  with  a 
caricatured  prudery,  and  Rachel  colored  faintly  and 
smiled. 

"Perhaps  I  wasn't  thinking  what  you  thought," 
she  said. 

"Oh  yes,  you  were,  you  sly  thing;  don't  try  to 
deceive  my  youth  and  inexperience.  I  suppose 
you're  glad  your  school's  over  for  the  summer, 
Rachel." 

18 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"I  don't  know.  Yes,  I'm  glad;  it's  hard  work. 
I  shall  have  a  change,  at  least,  helping  about  home." 

"What  shall  you  do?" 

"I  suppose  I  shall  wait  on  table." 

"Well,  then,  you  shall  not.  I'll  arrange  that  with 
your  mother,  anyway.  I'll  wait  on  table  myself, 
first." 

"I  don't  see  what  difference  it  makes  whether  I 
work  for  the  boarders  in  the  kitchen  or  wait  on 
them  at  the  table." 

1 '  It  makes  a  great  difference :  you  can't  be  bidden 
by  them  if  you're  not  in  the  way,  and  I'm  not  going 
to  have  a  woman  of  genius  asking  common  clay  if 
it  will  take  some  more  of  the  hash  or  another  help 
of  pie  in  my  presence.  Yes,  I  say  genius,  Rachel; 
and  Mrs.  Gilbert  said  so,  too,"  cried  Mrs.  Farrell, 
at  some  signs  in  the  girl,  who  seemed  a  little  im 
patient  of  the  subject,  as  of  something  already 
talked  over;  "and  I'm  proud  of  having  been  in  the 
secret  of  it.  I  never  shall  forget  how  they  all  looked 
when  I  came  dancing  out  with  it  and  stood  it  up  at 
the  head  of  the  table,  where  they  could  see  it! 
They  thought  I  did  it,  and  they  had  quite  a  revul 
sion  of  feeling  when  they  found  it  was  yours.  Where 
are  you  going,  Rachel  ?  To  Florence,  or  the  Cooper 
Institute,  or  Doctor  Rimmer?" 

"I  have  no  idea  of  going  anywhere.  I  have  no 
money;  father  couldn't  afford  to  send  me.  I  don't 
expect  to  leave  home." 

"Well,  then,  I'll  tell  you:  you  must.  Why  can't 
you  come  and  stay  with  me  in  Boston,  this  winter? 
I've  got  two  rooms,  and  money  enough  to  keep  a 

19 


MRS.  FARRELL 

couple  of  mice — especially  if  one's  a  country  mouse 
— and  we'll  study  art  together.  I  might  as  well  do 
that  as  anything — or  nothing.  Come,  is  it  a 
bargain?" 

"If  I  could  get  the  money  to  pay  for  my  boarding, 
I  think  I  should  like  it  very  much.  But  I  couldn't," 
answered  Rachel,  quietly. 

''Why,  Rachel,  can't  you  understand  that  you 
are  to  be  my  guest?" 

Even  the  women  of  West  Pekin  are  slow  to  melt 
in  gratitude,  and  Rachel  replied  without  effusion: 

"Did  you  mean  that?  It  is  very  good  of  you— 
but  I  could  never  think  of  it,"  she  added,  firmly. 
' '  I  never  could  pay  you  back  in  any  way.  It  would 
come  to  a  great  deal  in  a  winter — city  board." 

"Do  I  understand  you  to  refuse  this  handsome 
offer,  Rachel?" 

"I  must." 

"All  right.  Then  I  shall  certainly  count  upon 
your  being  with  me,  for  it  would  be  foolish  not  to 
come,  and  whatever  you  are,  Rachel,  you're  not 
foolish.  I'm  going  to  talk  with  your  mother  about 
it.  Why,  you  little — chipmunk,"  cried  Mrs.  Far- 
rell,  adding  the  term  of  endearment  after  some 
hesitation  for  the  precise  expression,  "I  want  you 
to  come  and  do  me  credit.  When  your  things  are 
on  exhibition  at  Williams  and  Everett's,  and  Doll 
and  Richards's,  I'm  going  to  gather  a  few  small 
spears  of  glory  for  myself  by  slyly  telling  round 
that  I  gave  you  your  first  instruction,  and  kept  you 
from  blushing  unseen  in  West  Pekin.  I've  felt  the 
want  of  a  protegee  a  good  while,  and  here  you  are, 

20 


MRS.   FARRELL 

just  made  to  my  hand.  I  heard  before  I  came  away 
that  they  were  going  to  get  up  a  life  class  next  win 
ter.  Perhaps  we  could  get  a  chance  to  join  that.'* 

"Life  class?" 

"Yes;   to  draw  from  the  nude,  you  know." 

"From  the—"  Rachel  hesitated. 

"Yes,  yes,  yes!  my  wild-wood  flower.  From  the 
human  being,  the  fellow-creature,  with  as  little  on 
as  possible,"  shouted  Mrs.  Farrell.  "How  can  you 
learn  the  figure  any  other  way?" 

A  puzzled,  painful  look  came  into  the  girl's  eyes, 
and  "Do — do — ladies  go?"  she  asked,  faintly. 

"Of  course  they  go!"  said  Mrs.  Farrell.  "It's  a 
regular  part  of  art-education.  The  ladies  have 
separate  classes  in  New  York;  but  they  don't 
abroad." 

Rachel  seemed  at  a  loss  what  to  answer.  She 
dropped  her  eyes  under  Mrs.  Farrell's  scrutiny,  and 
softly  plucked  at  a  tuft  of  grass.  At  last  she  said, 
without  looking  up,  "It  wouldn't  be  necessary  for 
me  to  go.  I  only  want  to  paint  animals." 

"Well,  and  aren't  men  animals?"  demanded  Mrs. 
Farrell,  leaning  forward  and  trying  to  turn  the  girl 
about  so  as  to  look  into  her  averted  face. 

"Don't!"  said  the  other,  in  a  wounded  tone. 

"Rachel,  Rachel!"  cried  Mrs.  Farrell,  tenderly, 
"I've  really  shocked  you,  haven't  I?  Don't  be 
mad  at  me,  my  little  girl:  I  didn't  invent  the  life 
class,  and  I  never  went  to  one.  I  don't  know 
whether  it's  exactly  nice  or  not.  I  suppose  people 
wouldn't  do  it  if  it  wasn't.  Come,  look  round  at 
me,  Rachel:  I'm  so  glad  of  your  liking  me  that  if 

21 


MRS.  FARRELL 

you  stop  it  for  half  a  second  you'll  break  my  heart ! " 
She  spoke  in  tones  of  anxious  appeal,  and  then  sud 
denly  added,  ' '  If  you'll  visit  me  this  winter  we  won't 
go  to  the  life  class;  we'll  sleep  together  in  the 
parlor  and  keep  a  cow  in  the  back  room." 

Rachel  gave  way  to  a  laugh,  with  her  face  hidden 
in  her  hands,  and  Mrs.  Farrell  fell  back,  satisfied, 
against  her  comfortable  rock  again,  and  put  her 
hand  in  her  pocket.  ' '  Look  here,  Rachel, ' '  she  said, 
drawing  it  out.  "Here's  something  of  yours." 
She  tossed  a  crisp,  rattling  ten-dollar  note  into  the 
girl's  lap,  and  nodded  as  Rachel  turned  a  face  cf 
question  upon  her.  I  sold  your  Blossom  for  that 
this  morning;  I  forgot  to  tell  you  before.  No, 
ma'am;  I  didn't  buy  it.  Mrs.  Gilbert  bought  it. 
The  others  praised  it,  Mrs.  Gilbert  paid  for  it: 
that's  Mrs.  Gilbert.  I  told  her  something  about 
you  and  how  you  owed  everything  to  my  instruc 
tion,  and  she  offered  ten  dollars  for  Blossom.  I 
tried  to  beat  her  down  to  five,"  she  continued, 
while  Rachel  stared  dumbly  at  the  money,  "but  it 
was  no  use.  She  wouldn't  fall  a  cent.  She  .  .  . 
Ugh!  What's  that?"  cried  Mrs.  Farrell. 

She  gathered  her  dispersed  picturesqueness  hastily 
up,  threw  her  head  alertly  round,  and  confronted  a 
mild-faced  cow,  placidly  pausing  twenty  paces  off 
under  the  bough  of  a  tree,  through  which  she  had 
advanced  her  visage,  and  softly  regarding  them 
with  her  gentle  brown  eyes.  "Why,  Blossom,  Blos 
som  ! ' '  complained  the  lady.  ' '  How  could  you  come 
up  in  that  startling  way?  I  thought  it  was  a  man! 
Though  of  course,"  she  added,  less  dramatically, 

22 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"I  might  have  remembered  that  there  isn't  a  man 
within  a  hundred  miles." 

She  was  about  to  lean  back  again  in  her  lazy 
posture,  when  voices  made  themselves  heard  from 
the  wood  beside  the  pasture  out  of  which  Blossom 
had  emerged.  "Men's  voices,  Rachel!"  she  whis 
pered.  "An  adventure!  I  suppose  we  must  run 
away  from  it!" 

Mrs.  Farrell  struggled  up  from  her  sitting  pos 
ture,  and,  entangling  her  foot  in  her  skirt,  plunged 
forward  with  graceful  awkwardness,  but  did  not 
fall.  She  caught  the  pins  out  of  her  drapery,  and 
Rachel  and  she  were  well  on  their  way  to  the  bars 
which  would  let  them  into  the  road,  when  two  men 
emerged  from  the  birch  thicket  out  of  which  Blos 
som  had  appeared.  One  was  tall  and  dark,  with  a 
firm,  very  dark  mustache  branching  across  a  full 
beard.  The  other  was  a  fair  man,  with  a  delicate 
face;  he  was  slight  of  frame,  and  of  the  middle 
stature;  in  his  whole  bearing  there  was  an  expres 
sion  of  tacit  resolution,  which  had  also  a  touch  of 
an  indefinable  something  that  one  might  call 
fanaticism.  Both  were  city-clad,  but  very  simply 
and  fitly  for  faring  through  woods  and  fields;  the 
dark  man  wore  high  boots;  he  carried  a  trouting 
rod,  and  at  his  side  was  a  fish  basket. 

They  looked  after  the  two  women  with  eyes  that 
clung  charmed  to  the  figure  of  Mrs.  Farrell,  as  she 
drifted  down  the  sloping  meadow-path. 

"Magnificent!"  said  the  dark  man,   carelessly. 
"A  daughter  of  the  gods,  divinely  tall  and  most 
divinely  fair!'" 

23 


MRS.  FARRELL 

A  flush  came  over  the  cheek  of  the  other,  but  he 
said  nothing,  while  he  absently  advanced  to  the 
rock  beside  which  the  women  had  been  sitting,  as 
if  that  superb  shape  had  drawn  him  thus  far  after 
her.  A  little  book  lay  there,  which  he  touched  with 
his  foot  before  he  saw  it.  As  he  stooped  to  pick 
it  up,  Mrs.  Farrell  stopped  fleetly,  as  a  deer  stops, 
and,  wheeling  round,  went  rapidly  back  toward  the 
two  men.  When  Mrs.  Farrell  advanced  upon  you, 
you  had  a  sense  of  lustrous  brown  eyes  growing 
and  brightening  out  of  space,  and  then  you  knew 
of  the  airy  looseness  of  the  overhanging  hair  and  of 
the  perfection  of  the  face,  and  last  of  the  sweeping, 
undulant  grace  of  the  divine  figure.  So  she  came 
onward  now,  fixing  her  unfrightened,  steadfast  eyes 
upon  the  young  man,  out  of  whose  face  went  every 
thing  but  worship.  He  took  off  his  hat,  and  bent 
forward  with  a  bow,  offering  the  pretty  volume, 
at  which  he  had  hardly  glanced. 

"Thanks,"  she  breathed,  and  for  an  instant  she 
relaxed  the  severe  impersonality  of  her  regard,  and 
flooded  him  with  a  look.  He  stood  helpless,  while 
she  turned  and  swiftly  rejoined  her  companion,  and 
so  he  remained  standing  till  she  and  Rachel  had 
passed  through  the  meadow  bars  and  out  of 
sight. 

Then  the  dark  man  moved  and  said,  solemnly, 
"Don't  laugh,  Easton;  you  wouldn't  like  to  be 
seen  through,  yourself." 

"Laugh,  Gilbert?"  retorted  Easton,  with  a  start. 
"What  do  you  mean?  What  is  there  to  laugh  at?" 
he  demanded. 

24 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"Nothing.  It  was  superbly  done.  It  was  a 
stroke  of  genius  in  its  way." 

"I  don't  understand  you,"  cried  Easton. 

''Why,  you  don't  suppose  she  left  it  here  on  pur 
pose,  and  meant  one  of  us  to  pick  it  up,  so  that  she 
could  come  back  and  get  it  from  him,  and  fee  just 
what  manner  of  men  we  were;  and — " 

"No!     I  don't  suppose  that." 

"Neither  do  I,"  said  Gilbert,  nonchalantly.  "I 
never  saw  anything  more  unconscious.  Come, 
let's  be  going;  there's  nothing  to  call  her  back, 
now." 

He  put  his  hand  under  the  fish  basket,  and 
weighed  it  mechanically,  while  he  used  the  mass  of 
his  uncoupled  rod  staff  wise,  and  moved  away. 
Easton  followed  with  a  bewildered  air,  at  which 
Gilbert,  when  he  happened  to  glance  round  at  him, 
broke  into  a  laugh. 


Chapter  III 

IN  the  evening  Gilbert  walked  over  to  Wood 
ward  farm  from  the  hotel  where  he  and  Easton 
had  stopped  that  morning,  and  called  on  his 
sister-in-law.  He  had  brought  word  from  her  hus 
band  in  Boston,  whom  he  had  gone  out  of  his  course 
to  see  on  his  journey  up  from  New  York.  When 
she  found  out  that  he  had  been  in  West  Pekin  all 
day,  he  owned  that  he  had  spent  the  time  fishing. 
' '  I  didn't  suppose  you'd  be  in  any  hurry  to  hear  of 
Bob's  detention;  and  really,  you  know,  I  came  for 
the  fishing." 

"You  needn't  be  so  explicit,  William,"  said  Mrs. 
Gilbert.  "I'm  not  vain." 

"I  was  merely  apologizing." 

' '  Were  you  ?    What  luck  did  you  have  ? ' ' 

"The  brooks  are  fished  to  death.  I've  had  bad 
enough  luck  to  satisfy  even  Easton,  who  had  a  con 
science  against  fishing,  among  other  things." 

' '  Easton !  Your  Easton  ?  Is  Wayne  Easton  with 
you?"  demanded  Mrs.  Gilbert,  with  impetuous  in 
terest.  ' '  You  don't  mean  it ! " 

"No,  but  I  say  it,"  answered  Gilbert,  un 
perturbed. 

"What  in  the  world  brought  him?"  pursued  his 
sister-in-law  more  guardedly,  as  if  made  aware  by 

26 


MRS.   FARRELL 

some  lurking  pain  that  an  impetuous  interest  was 
not  for  invalids. 

"The  ideal  of  friendship.  I  happened  to  say  that 
I  was  feeling  a  little  out  of  sorts  and  was  coming  up 
here,  and  he  jumped  at  the  chance  to  disarrange 
himself  by  coming  with  me.  He  was  illustrating 
his  great  principle  that  New  York  is  the  best  place 
to  spend  the  summer,  and  it  cost  him  something  of 
a  struggle  to  give  it  up,  but  he  conquered." 

"Is  he  really  so  queer?" 

"He  or  we.  I  won't  make  so  bold  as  to  say 
which." 

"Has  he  still  got  that  remarkable  protege  of  his 
on  his  hands?" 

"No;  Rogers  has  given  Easton  his  freedom.  He's 
gone  on  to  a  farm,  with  all  Easton's  board  and  lodg 
ing,  Latin  and  French,  in  him.  His  modest  aspira 
tion  is  finally  to  manage  a  market  garden." 

"What  a  wicked  waste  of  beneficence!" 

"Easton  looks  at  it  differently.  He  says  that  no 
one  else  would  ever  have  given  Rogers  an  educa 
tion,  and  that  the  learning  wasn't  more  thrown 
away  on  him  than  on  many,  perhaps  most,  people 
who  are  sent  to  college;  learning  has  to  be  thrown 
away  somehow.  Besides,  he  economized  by  sharing 
his  room  with  Rogers,  you  know." 

"No,  I  didn't  know  that.  Don't  you  think  that 
was  rather  more  than  Providence  required  of  Mr. 
Easton?" 

"I  can't  say,  Mrs.  Gilbert." 

1 '  But  to  take  such  a  hopeless  case — so  hopelessly 
common!" 

27 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"There  are  some  odd  instances  of  the  kind  on 
record.  The  Christian  religion  was  originally  sent 
to  rather  a  common  lot." 

"Yes,  but  Latin  wasn't,  and  French  wasn't,  and 
first-class  board  wasn't.  You  needn't  try  to  gam 
mon  me  with  that  sort  of  thing,  William.  I  won't 
stand  it." 

"Well,  I  wouldn't,  myself.  But  I  thought  per 
haps  a  lady  might.  Why  did  you  put  me  on  the 
defensive?  I  didn't  try  to  form  Rogers,  or  reform. 
him." 

"No,  but  you  countenanced  your  Mr.  Easton  in 
it.  He  ought  to  have  married  and  supported  a  wife, 
instead  of  risking  his  money  on  such  a  wild  venture; 
it's  no  better  than  gambling." 

"That's  your  old  hobby,  Susan.  A  man  can't 
always  be  marrying  and  supporting  a  wife.  And 
as  for  countenancing  Easton,  if  he  thought  a  thing 
was  right,  it's  very  little  of  my  cheek  he  would 
want  to  uphold  him." 

"Oh,  I  dare  say.  That's  his  insufferable  conceit; 
conscientious  people  are  always  so  conceited! 
They're  always  so  sure  that  they  know  just  what  is 
right  and  wrong.  Ugh!  I  can't  endure  'em." 

"I  don't  think  Eastern's  conscientiousness  is  of 
that  aggravating  type,  exactly,"  said  Gilbert,  with 
a  lazy  laugh. 

"He  has  got  a  good  many  principles,  ready  cut 
and  dried,  but  I  should  say  life  in  general  was 
something  of  a  puzzler  to  him.  He's  one  of  the 
wrecks  of  the  war.  'Easton  was  peculiarly  fitted  to 
go  on  fighting  forever  in  a  sacred  cause ;  he's  a  born 

28 


MRS.   FARRELL 

crusader;  and  this  piping  time  of  peace  takes  him 
at  a  disadvantage.  He  hates  rest,  and  ease,  and 
all  the  other  nice  things;  what  he  wants  is  some 
good,  disagreeable,  lasting  form  of  self-sacrifice: 
I  believe  it's  a  real  grief  to  him  that  he  didn't  lose  a 
leg ;  a  couple  of  amputations  would  have  made  him 
perfectly  happy;  though  of  course  he  would  choose 
another  war  of  emancipation,  for  he  wouldn't  want 
to  be  happy  in  such  a  useless  way.  As  it  is,  he  is  a 
wretched  castaway  on  the  shores  of  the  Fortunate 
Isles." 

"Why  doesn't  he  do  something?  Why  does  he 
idle  away  even  the  contemDtible  hours  of  peace  and 
prosperity?" 

' '  He  does ;  he  doesn't.  He's  at  work  on  that  book 
of  his,  all  the  time." 

"Oh,  I  don't  call  that  work." 

"He  makes  it  work.  Even  if  he  went  merely  to 
literature  for  his  material,  his  Contributions  to  the 
Annals  of  Heroism  might  be  a  serious  labor ;  but  he 
goes  to  life  for  it.  He  hunts  up  his  heroes  in  the 
streets  and  in  the  back  alleys,  in  domestic  service, 
in  the  newspaper  offices,  in  bank  parlors,  and  even 
in  the  pulpits :  he  has  a  most  catholic  taste  in  hero 
ism;  he  spares  neither  age,  sex,  nor  condition.  I 
suppose  it  isn't  an  idle  thing  to  instruct  the  world 
that  all  the  highest  dreams  of  self-devotion  and 
courage  and  patience  are  daily  realized  in  our 
blackguard  metropolis :  we  leave  culture  and  refine 
ment  to  Boston.  And  if  it  were  so,  it  must  be  al 
lowed  that  even  with  a  futile  object  in  view,  Easton 
does  some  incidental  good :  he  half  supports  about 

29 


MRS.  FARRELL 

half  of  his  heroes,  and  he's  always  wasting  his  time 
and  substance  in  good  deeds." 

"Well,  well,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert,  "I  can't  admire 
such  an  eccentric,  and  you  needn't  ask  me." 

' '  I  don't.  But  this  is  just  what  shows  the  hope 
less  middlingness  of  your  character.  If  you  were 
a  very  much  better  or  a  very  much  worse  woman, 
you  would  admire  him  immensely." 

"Oh,  don't  talk  to  me,  William!  He's  a  man's 
man,  and  that's  the  end  of  him.  Why  didn't  you 
bring  him  with  you  to-night?" 

"He  wouldn't  come." 

"Did  you  tell  him  there  were  fifteen  ladies  in  the 
house?" 

"It  was  that  very  stroke  of  logic  which  seemed  to 
settle  his  mind  about  it.  He  is  a  man's  man,  you're 
right;  he's  shyer  of  your  admirable  sex  than  any 
country  boy;  it's  no  use  to  tell  him  you're  not  so 
dangerous  as  you  look.  But  even  if  he  hadn't  been 
afraid  of  your  ladies,  the  force  of  my  argument 
might  have  been  weakened  by  the  fact  of  the 
twenty-five  at  the  hotel.  What  are  the  superior 
inducements  of  your  fifteen?" 

"They  are  all  very  nice." 

"How  many?" 

"Well,  three  or  four:  and  none  of  them  are 
disagreeable." 

"Are  you  going  to  introduce  me?" 

"They're  in  bed  now — it's  half  past  eight — and 
they'd  be  asleep  if  it  didn't  keep  them  awake  to 
wonder  who  you  are.  If  you'll  come  to-morrow  I'll 
introduce  you." 

30 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"Good!  Now  I've  been  pretty  satisfactory 
about  Easton,  I  think — " 

1 '  I  don't  see  how  you  could  have  said  less.  Every 
word  was  extorted  from  you." 

"What  I  want  to  know,"  continued  Gilbert,  "is 
whether  the  loveliest  being  in  West  Pekin,  not  to 
say  the  world,  counts  among  your  fair  fifteen." 

When  Mrs.  Gilbert  married,  her  husband's 
youngest  brother,  William,  had  come  to  live  with 
them,  his  father  and  mother  being  dead,  and  his 
brothers  and  sisters  preoccupied  with  their  own 
children.  He  was  not  in  his  teens  yet,  and  she  had 
taken  the  handsome,  dark-eyed,  black-headed  boy 
under  the  fond  protection  which  young  married 
ladies  sometimes  like  to  bestow  upon  pretty  boy 
brothers-in-law.  This  kindness,  at  first  a  little 
romantic,  became,  with  the  process  of  years  that 
brought  her  no  children  of  her  own,  a  love  more 
like  that  of  mother  and  son  between  them.  Her 
condescension  had  vastly  flattered  the  handsome 
lad ;  as  he  grew  older,  she  seemed  to  him  the  bright 
est  as  well  as  the  kindest  woman  in  the  world; 
and  now,  after  a  score  of  years,  when  the  crow  was 
beginning  to  leave  his  footprints  at  the  corners  of 
her  merry  eyes,  and  she  had  fallen  into  that  per 
manent  disrepair  which  seems  the  destiny  of  so 
much  youthful  strength  and  spirit  among  our 
women,  he  knew  no  one  whose  company  was  more 
charming.  The  tacit  compliment  of  his  devotion 
doubtless  touched  a  woman  who  was  long  past 
compliments  in  most  things ;  something  like  health 
and  youth  he  always  seemed  to  bring  back  to  her 


MRS.   FARRELL 

whenever  he  returned  to  her  from  absences  that 
grew  longer  and  longer  after  her  husband  removed 
to  Boston — Mrs.  Gilbert's  native  city — and  left 
William  to  follow  his  young  man's  devices  in  New 
York.  Through  all  changes  and  chances  she  had 
remained  constant  to  this  pet  of  her  early  matron- 
hood,  now  a  man  past  thirty.  It  was  her  great 
affliction  that  she  could  not  watch  over  him  at  that 
distance  in  the  dangerous  and  important  matter  of 
marriage,  for  she  was  both  zealous  and  jealous 
that  he  should  marry  to  the  utmost  advantage  that 
the  scant  resources  of  her  sex  allowed,  and  it  was 
but  a  partial  consolation  that  she  still  had  him  to 
be  anxious  about. 

They  were  sitting  together  in  her  hospitable 
room  by  the  light  of  a  kerosene  lamp,  with  the  mos 
quitoes,  which  swarm  in  West  Pekin  up  to  the  end 
of  July,  baffled  by  window  nettings.  She  rose 
dramatically,  shut  the  window  that  opened  upon 
the  piazza,  and  said,  "  You  haven't  seen  her  already ! 
Where?" 

"In  one  of  the  back  pastures." 

"I'll  never  believe  it!  How  did  she  look?  Dark 
or  fair?" 

"Dark;  Greek;  hair  fluffy  over  the  forehead; 
eyes  that  'stared  on  you  silent  and  still,  like  the 
eyes  in  the  house  of  the  idols/  I  know  it  was  she, 
for  there  can't  be  two  of  her."  Gilbert  gave  a  brief 
account  of  their  meeting. 

"It  was,  it  was,"  sighed  Mrs.  Gilbert,  tragically. 
"It  was  Mrs.  Belle  Farrell!" 

"Mrs?" 

32 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"A  widow.  The  most  opportunely  bereft  of 
women!" 

"Susan,  you  interest  me." 

"Oh,  very  likely!  So  will  she.  She  must  be 
famishing  for  a  flirtation,  and  it's  you  she'll  bend 
her  devouring  eyes  upon,  for  I  infer  that  your  Mr. 
Easton,  whatever  he  is,  isn't  a  flirt." 

"Easton?    Well,  no,  I  should  think  he  wasn't." 

Mrs.  Gilbert  leaned  back,  staring  with  a  vacant 
smile  across  the  room.  But  directly,  as  she  began 
to  talk  of  Mrs.  Farrell,  her  eyes  lighted  up  with  the 
enjoyment  that  women  feel  in  analyzing  one  of 
themselves  for  a  man  who  likes  women  and  knows 
how  to  make  the  due  allowances  and  supply  all 
the  skipped  details  of  the  process.  Gilbert  had 
taken  his  place  in  her  easy-chair  when  she  shut  the 
window,  and  she  had  disposed  herself  among  the 
cushions  and  pillows  of  her  lounge;  he  listened 
with  lazy  luxury  and  a  smile  of  intelligence. 

"Yes,  she  will  interest  you,  William;  she  interests 
me,  and  I  don't  dislike  her  as  I  might  if  I  were  a 
youthful  beauty  myself.  In  fact,  she  fascinates  me, 
and  I  rather  like  her,  on  the  whole.  And  I  don't 
see  why  I  don't  approve  of  her.  I  don't  know  any 
thing  against  her." 

Gilbert  laughed.  "That's  rather  a  damaging 
thing  to  say  of  a  lady." 

"Yes,"  answered  his  sister-in-law,  "I  wouldn't 
say  it  to  everybody.  But  really,  it  seems  odd  that 
one  doesn't  know  anything  against  her.  She's  very 
peculiar — for  a  woman;  and  I  don't  know  whether 
her  peculiarity  comes  from  her  character  or  from 

3  33 


MRS.  FARRELL 

her  circumstances.  It's  a  trying  thing  to  be  just 
the  kind  of  handsome  young  widow  that  Mrs. 
Farrell  is  in  Boston." 

Gilbert  did  not  comment  audibly,  but  he  lifted 
his  eyebrows,  and  his  sister-in-law  went  on:  "Not 
but  that  we  approve  of  youth  and  beauty  as  much 
as  any  one.  In  fact,  if  Mrs.  Farrell  had  simply  de 
voted  herself  to  youth  and  beauty,  and  waited  for 
the  right  man,  she  could  have  married  again  splen 
didly  and  been  living  abroad  by  this  time.  But,  no ! 
And  that's  been  her  ruin." 

"She's  rather  a  picturesque  ruin — to  look  at," 
said  Gilbert.  "What  has  she  done  to  desolate  her 
self?  What  was  she  when  in  good  repair?" 

"Well,  that  isn't  quite  so  easy  to  make  you 
understand.  Originally  she  was  something  in  the 
seafaring  line.  Her  father  was  a  ship's  captain, 
from  somewhere  in  Maine,  I  believe ;  and  when  her 
mother  died,  this  young  lady  was  left  at  a  tender 
age  with  her  seafaring  father  on  her  hands,  and 
they  didn't  know  what  to  do  with  each  other.  But 
the  paternal  pirate  had  a  particular  friend  in  a  Mr. 
Farrell,  the  merchant  who  owned  most  of  his  vessel, 
and  this  Mr.  Farrell  had  the  little  girl  brought  up 
and  educated  with  his  half  sisters — he  was  a  bache 
lor  and  very  much  their  elder.  One  day  the  cap 
tain  came  home  from  a  voyage,  and  was  drowned 
by  the  capsizing  of  his  sailboat  in  the  bay;  I  be 
lieve  that's  the  death  that  old  sea  captains  gener 
ally  die;  and  this  seemed  to  suggest  a  new  idea  to 
old  Mr.  Farrell.  He  thought  he  would  get  married, 
and  he  observed  that  the  little  girl  under  his  charge 

34 


MRS.   FARRELL 

was  an  extremely  beautiful  young  woman,  and  he 
fell  in  love  with  her,  and  married  her — to  the  dis 
gust  of  his  half  sisters,  who  didn't  like  her.  He 
was  a  very  respectable  old  party;  Robert  knew 
him  quite  well  in  the  way  of  business,  but  I  never 
saw  anything  of  her  in  society ;  and  if  she  liked  age 
and  respectability,  it  was  all  very  well,  especially 
as  he  died  pretty  soon  afterward — I  don't  know 
exactly  how  soon." 

"He  left  her  his  money,  I  suppose?" 
"Yes,  he  did;  and  that's  the  oddest  part  of  it; 
there  was  very  little  of  the  money,  and  Mr.  Farrell 
was  supposed  to  be  rich.  Still,  there  was  enough  to 
have  supported  her  in  comfort  while  she  quietly 
waited  for  her  second  husband,  if  she'd  been  content 
to  wait  quietly ;  and  she  could  easily  have  kept  Mr. 
Farrell's  level  in  society  if  she  had  remained  with 
his  family.  In  fact,  she  could  have  risen  some 
notches  higher;  there  are  plenty  of  people  who 
would  have  been  glad  of  her  as  a  sort  of  ornamental 
protegee,  don't  you  know;  and  if  she  had  got  a  few 
snubs,  it  would  have  done  her  good.  But  she 
wouldn't  be  patronized  and  she  wouldn't  wait 
quietly." 

"Perhaps  you've  grown  to  be  something  of  a 
snob,  Susan." 

"I  know  it;  I  own  it.  Did  I  ever  deny  it?  It's 
the  only  safe  ground  for  a  woman.  But  Mrs. 
Farrell  preferred  to  go  living  on  in  that  demi-semi- 
Bohemian  way — " 

"What  demi-semi-Bohemian  way?" 
"Oh,  skirmishing  round  from  one  shabby-genteel 
35 


MRS.  FARRELL 

boarding  house  to  another,  and  one  family  hotel  to 
another,  and  setting  up  housekeeping  in  rooms,  and 
studying  music  at  the  Conservatory,  and  taking  les 
sons  in  all  the  fine  arts,  and  trying  to  give  parlor 
readings,  and  that — and  not  doing  it  in  earnest, 
but  making  a  great  display  and  spectacle  of  it.  And 
so  instead  of  keeping  her  little  income  to  dress  on, 
and  getting  invitations  to  Newport  for  the  summer, 
she's  here  in  a  farmhouse  with  us  old  fogies  and 
decayed  gentles  and  cultivated  persons  of  small 
means.  But  it's  rather  odd  about  Mrs.  Farrell.  I 
don't  believe  she  would  enjoy  herself  in  society; 
it  has  limitations;  it  doesn't  afford  her  the  kind  of 
scope  she  wants;  it  doesn't  respond  with  the  sort 
of  immediate  effects  that  she  likes — at  least  Boston 
society  doesn't.  What  Mrs.  Belle  Farrell  wishes  to 
do  is  something  vivid,  stunning;  and  that  isn't 
quite  what  society  smiles  upon — in  Boston.  Be 
sides,  society  may  be  very  selfish,  but  it  really 
requires  great  self-sacrifice,  and  I  don't  believe 
Mrs.  Belle  Farrell  is  quite  equal  to  that.  Don't 
you  see?'* 

"  Dimly.  Did  she  ever  try  the  Cause  of  Woman, 
among  her  other  experiments?" 

"Well,  that  requires  self-sacrifice,  too,  in  its  way; 
and  Mrs.  Farrell  doesn't  like  women  very  much, 
and  she  does  like  men  very  much;  and  she  couldn't 
bear  to  be  grotesque  in  men's  eyes.  Not  that  she 
would  respect  men  much,  or  more  than  she  does 
women.  She's  very  queer.  I  suppose  she  has 
streaks  of  genius;  just  enough  to  spoil  her  for  hu 
man  nature's  daily  food." 

36 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"We  do  find  genius  indigestible — in  women," 
allowed  Gilbert,  thoughtfully.  "But  isn't  life  a 
little  less  responsive  to  her  vivid  intentions  at 
Woodward  farm  than  it  would  be  anywhere  else? 
Forgive  the  remark  if  there  seems  to  be  any  un 
pleasant  implication  in  it." 

"You've  nothing  to  be  forgiven,  William.  We 
know  we  are  dull;  we  glory  in  our  torpidity.  But 
I  suppose  Mrs.  Farrell  has  had  the  immense  relief, 
here,  of  not  trying  to  produce  any  effect.  Con 
sciously,  I  mean ;  unconsciously,  she  never  can  stop 
trying  it  till  she's  in  her  grave." 

Gilbert,  who  had  leaned  forward  with  interest, 
in  the  course  of  Mrs.  Gilbert's  tale,  now  fell  back 
again  in  his  chair,  and  said:  "Oh,  I  see.  You  are 
prejudiced  against  Mrs.  Belle  Farrell.  You  have 
among  you  here  a  woman  of  extraordinary  beauty, 
who  strives  in  her  own  fashion  after  the  ideal,  who 
struggles  to  escape  from  the  stupid  round  of  your 
cares  and  duties  and  proprieties,  and  you  want  to 
hem  her  in  with  the  same  dread  and  misapprehen 
sion  that  imprison  her  life  in  your  brutal  Boston. 
She  longs  for  a  breath  of  free  mountain  air,  and  you 
stifle  her  with  your  dense  social  atmosphere.  I  see 
it  all,  plainly  enough.  You  misinterpret  that  sensi 
tive,  generous,  proud  spirit.  But  no  matter;  I 
shall  soon  be  able  to  make  my  own  version." 

"She'll  give  you  every  facility.  I  have  no  doubt 
she's  in  her  room  now,  preparing  little  hints  and 
suggestions  for  your  fancy  to-morrow.  Her  dress  at 
breakfast  will  tell  the  tale.  But  you  needn't  flatter 
yourself,  William,  that  she'll  care  for  you  personally 

37 


MRS.  FARRELL 

or  individually;  it's  you  in  the  abstract  that  will 
interest  her,  as  a  handsome  young  man  that  certain 
effects  of  posture  and  drapery  and  gesture  may  be 
tried  upon.  I  should  like  to  know  just  how  she 
stood  and  stared  when  you  met  her,  you  two,  there 
in  the  berry  pasture,  alone.  Did  she  look  mag 
nificently  startled,  splendidly  frightened?  The 
woman  wouldn't  really  have  minded  meeting  a 
panther." 

"I  didn't  say  she  was  alone." 

" So  you  didn't!    Who  was  with  her?" 

"Oh,  a  little  thrush  of  a  girl,  slim  and  shy- 
looking." 

' '  Well,  William !  You  may  as  well  take  your  Mr. 
Easton  and  go  back  to  your  New  York  at  once." 

"What  have  I  done?" 

"Nothing;  you  have  simply  exhausted  our  re 
sources;  you  have  devoured  with  the  same  indis 
criminate  glance  our  Beauty  and  our  Genius." 

' '  What  do  you  mean  ? ' ' 

"That  little  thrush  of  a  girl  is  the  Rosa  Bonheur 
of  West  Pekin." 

"Truly?  Do  I  understand  that  the  young  lady 
does  horse  fairs  for  a  living?" 

"Not  exactly,  or  not  yet.  She  is  the  daughter 
of  our  landlady.  She  teaches  school  for  a  living, 
and  last  year  she  waited  on  table  in  vacation.  I 
don't  know  how  long  she  may  have  been  in  the 
habit  of  doing  horse  fairs  in  secret,  but  she  pro 
duced  her  first  work  in  public  this  morning — or 
rather  Mrs.  Farrell  did  for  her;  the  exhibition 
was  too  much  for  the  artist's  modesty,  and  we 

38 


MRS.   FARRELL 

had  no  chance  to  congratulate  her.  She  had 
done  a  head  of  Blossom,  the  Alderney  cow,  in 
charcoal." 

"Was  it  good?"  asked  Gilbert,  indifferently. 

"That  was  the  saddest  part  of  it:  if  it  had  been 
bad,  I  should  have  had  some  hopes  of  her,  but  it 
was  really  very  promising;  and  it  made  my  heart 
ache  to  think  of  another  woman  of  talent  strug 
gling  with  the  world.  She  would  be  so  much  hap 
pier  if  she  had  no  talent.  I  suppose,  now  it's  out, 
she'll  be  obliged  by  public  opinion  to  take  some 
sort  of  lessons,  and  go  abroad,  and  worry  com 
missions  out  of  people.  Honestly,  don't  you  think 
it's  a  pity,  William?" 

"It  isn't  a  winning  prospect,"  said  Gilbert. 
"What  did  you  all  say  and  do?" 

Mrs.  Gilbert  relaxed  the  half  seriousness  of  her 
face.  "Oh,  it  was  a  very  pretty  scene,  I  can  tell 
you.  They  brought  the  sketch  into  my  room  after 
breakfast,  with  Mrs.  Belle  Farrell  at  the  head  of 
the  procession,  and  set  it  down  on  my  mantel 
piece,  and  all  crowded  round  it,  and  praised  it  with 
that  enthusiasm  for  genius  which  Boston  people 
always  feel." 

Gilbert  smiled  insult,  and  his  sister-in-law  went 
on. 

"It  was  really  very  touching  to  hear  our  two 
youngest  girls  rave  over  it  in  that  fresh,  worshiping 
way  young  Boston  girls  have ;  and  we  have  another 
artist  in  the  house  (she  paints  cat-tail  rushes,  and 
has  her  whole  room  looking  like  a  swamp)  who 
hailed  it  with  effusion.  She  said  that  Miss  Wood- 

39 


MRS.   FARRELL 

ward's  talent  was  God-given,  and  ought  to  be 
cultivated." 

"Of  course." 

1 '  Then  everybody  else  said  so,  too,  and  wondered 
that  they  hadn't  thought  of  God-given  before  Mrs. 
Stevenson  did.  It  seemed  to  describe  it  so  exactly." 

' '  I  see, ' '  said  Gilbert.  ' '  Mrs.  Stevenson  embodies 
the  average  Boston  art  feeling.  How  long  has  she 
left  off  chromos?  How  does  her  husband  like  the 
cat-tails?" 

"He  thinks  they're  beautiful  and  he  attributes 
all  sorts  of  sentiment  to  them.  He's  a  very  good 
man." 

Gilbert  laughed  aloud.  "He  must  be.  What  did 
the  Woodward  family  think  of  Blossom's  head  in 
charcoal?" 

"Nobody  knows  what  the  Woodward  family 
think  of  that  or  of  anything  else,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert. 
"I  hope  they  don't  despise  us,  for  I  respect  Mrs. 
Woodward  very  much;  she  has  character,  and  she 
looks  as  if  she  had  history;  but  they  draw  the  line 
very  strictly  between  themselves  and  the  boarders, 
all  except  Mrs.  Farrell." 

"Ah?"  said  Gilbert,  who  had  visibly  not  cared  to 
hear  about  the  Woodwards,  "and  why  except  Mrs. 
Farrell?" 

"Well,  nobody  exactly  knows.  She  thawed  their 
ice,  I  suppose,  by  having  a  typhoid  fever  here, 
summer  before  last,  when  she  first  came;  they 
nursed  her  through  it,  and  did  her  no  end  of  kind 
ness,  and  of  course  that  made  them  fond  of  her — • 
so  perverse  is  human  nature.  Besides,  I  think  she 

40 


MRS.  FARRELL 

fascinates  their  straight-up-and-downness  by  the 
graceful  convolutions  of  her  circuitous  character; 
that's  human  nature,  too." 

Gilbert  laughed  again,  but  did  not  say  anything; 
and  his  sister-in-law,  after  waiting  for  him  to 
speak,  returned  to  what  she  had  been  saying  of 
Rachel  Woodward. 

"You  had  better  tell  Mr.  Easton  about  our 
artist.  He  may  be  on  the  lookout  for  another  bene 
ficiary,  now  Rogers  is  gone,  and  would  like  her  for 
a  protegee.  If  some  one  could  only  marry  her,  poor 
girl,  and  put  her  out  of  her  misery  in  that  way! 
As  it  stands,  it's  a  truly  deplorable  case." 

"I'm  sorry  you  still  think  so  meanly  of  woman, 
Susan,"  said  Gilbert,  rising. 

"Yes,  it  is  sorrowful;  but  it's  an  old  story  to  you. 
I  take  my  cue  from  Nature;  she  never  loses  an  oc 
casion  to  show  her  contempt  for  us;  she  knows  us 
so  well.  Do  you  see  anything  hopeful  in  Miss 
Woodward's  predicament  ? " 

"  I'm  a  man.  If  I  were  a  woman  I  would  never  go 
back  on  my  sex." 

1 '  Oh,  you  can't  tell ;  a  man  can  have  no  idea  how 
very  little  women  think  of  one  another.  Is  Robert 
really  so  very  busy?  I  don't  blame  him  for  finding 
a  substitute  for  West  Pekin  when  he  can ;  but  I  do 
blame  him  for  trying  to  spare  my  feelings  now, 
when  he  hasn't  been  here  but  twice  this  summer. 
Of  course,  he  hates  to  come,  and  I'm  going  to  give 
him  his  freedom  for  the  rest  of  the  season." 

"I  think  he'll  like  it,"  said  Gilbert.  He  offered 
his  hand  for  good  night,  and  his  sister-in-law  allowed 


MRS.  FARRELL 

him  to  go,  like  a  wise  invalid  who  knows  her  own 
force  and  endurance. 

Gilbert  found  Easton  waiting  for  him  on  the  upper 
gallery  of  the  hotel,,  which  overlooked  a  deep, 
broad  hollow.  At  the  bottom  of  this  the  white  mist 
lay  so  dense  that  it  filled  the  space  of  the  valley 
like  a  shallow  lake,  and  the  clumps  of  trees  stood 
out  of  it  here  and  there  like  little  isles.  The  friends 
sat  looking  at  the  pretty  illusion  in  the  silence  which 
friends  need  not  break,  and  Easton's  cigar  flashed 
and  darkened  in  the  shadow  like  the  spark  of  a  far- 
seen  revolving  light.  He  often  lamented  this  habit 
of  his  in  vigorous  self-reproach,  not  chiefly  as  a 
thing  harmful  to  himself,  but  as  a  public  wrong  and 
an  oppression  to  many  other  people;  if  any  one 
had  asked  him  to  give  it  up,  he  would  gladly  have 
done  so;  but  no  one  did,  and  he  clung  to  his  cigar 
with  a  constancy  which  Gilbert,  who  did  not  smoke, 
praised  as  the  saving  virtue  of  his  character,  the 
one  thing  that  kept  him  from  being  a  standing  re 
buke  to  humanity. 

After  a  while  Easton  drew  the  last  shameful 
solace  from  his  cigar  and  flung  the  remaining  frag 
ment  over  the  rail.  He  rose  to  look  after  it  and  see 
that  it  set  nothing  on  fire;  then  he  returned  to  his 
seat  and,  clasping  his  hands  outside  his  knees,  said, 
"I've  been  thinking  over  that  encounter  of  ours 
with  that  girl  to-day,  and  I  believe  you  are  right. 
She  did  leave  the  book  there  that  she  might  have  an 
excuse  to  come  back  and  see  what  we  were  like. ' ' 

"Well?" 

"And  I  see  no  harm  in  her  having  done  so.  We 
42 


MRS.   FARRELL 

shouldn't  have  thought  it  out  of  the  way  in  a  man; 
and  a  woman  had  as  much  right  to  do  it.  The  sub 
terfuge  is  the  only  thing;  I  don't  like  that,  though 
it  was  a  very  frank  artifice,  and  the  whole  relation 
of  the  sexes  is  a  series  of  subterfuges:  it  seems  to 
be  the  design  of  Nature,  who  knows  what  she's 
about,  I  dare  say.  No  doubt  we  should  lose  a  great 
deal  that's  very  pleasant  in  life  without  them." 

"There  could  be  no  flirting  without  them," 
answered  Gilbert,  "and  no  lovely  Farrells,  conse 
quently."  Easton  turned  his  face  toward  him,  and 
Gilbert  continued:  "Farrell  is  her  name:  Mrs. 
Belle  Farrell ;  she  is  a  widow." 

"A  widow?"  echoed  Easton,  rather  disap 
pointedly. 

"Yes,"  said  Gilbert.  "I  dare  say  she  would  be 
willing  to  mend  the  fault.  She's  passing  the  summer 
at  the  Woodward  farm;  my  sister-in-law  has  been 
telling  me  all  about  her,"  he  said.  He  reproduced 
Mrs.  Gilbert's  facts  and  impressions,  but  in  his 
version  it  did  not  seem  to  be  much  about  her,  after 
all. 

Easton  rose  from  his  chair  and  struck  a  light  on 
his  match  case,  but  he  absently  suffered  it  to  burn 
out  before  lighting  his  cigar.  When  he  had  done 
this  a  second  time  he  began  to  walk  nervously  up 
and  down  the  gallery. 

"It's  a  face  to  die  for!"  he  said,  half  musingly. 

"Very  well,"  said  Gilbert.  "I  think  Mrs.  Farrell 
would  be  much  pleased  to  have  some  one  die  for 
her  face,  and  on  the  whole  it  would  be  better  than 
to  live  for  it.  But  these  are  abstractions,  my  dear 

43 


MRS.  FARRELL 

fellow;  I'm  going  to  bed  now;  there's  no  use  in 
being  out  of  sorts  if  I  don't.  Good  night." 

"I'm  not — yet  awhile,"  said  Easton.  "Good 
night.  Are  you  going  over  to  the  farm  again  in  the 
morning?" 

1 '  Yes.    Will  you  go  with  me  ? " 

"I  don't  know;  I  thought  I  should  go  to  church." 

"All  right.  Very  likely  the  Farrell  may  be  there. 
But  I  prefer  to  chance  it  at  the  farm." 

Easton  did  not  answer.  He  struck  a  third  match, 
and  this  time  lit  a  cigar.  Gilbert  went  his  way,  and 
left  him  seated  on  the  gallery,  looking  over  into  the 
mist-flooded  hollow. 


Chapter  IV 

THEY  were  at  work  on  the  foundations  of 
the  First  Church  in  West  Pekin  when  tid 
ings  came  of  the  battle  of  Lexington,  and 
the  masons  laid  down  their  trowels,  and  the  car 
penters  their  chisels,  to  take  up  their  flintlocks  for 
the  long  war  then  so  bravely  beginning.  After  the 
close  of  the  struggle,  it  appears  that  a  sufficient 
number  of  the  parishioners  survived  to  finish  the 
building  in  all  the  ugliness  of  the  original  design. 
It  stands  there  yet,  a  vast,  barnlike  monument  of 
their  devotion,  and  after  the  lapse  of  a  hundred 
years  is  beginning  slowly  to  clothe  itself  in  the 
interest  which  we  feel  in  the  quaint  where  we  can 
not  have  the  beautiful.  Some  of  the  neighboring 
houses,  restored  and  improved  for  the  accommoda 
tion  of  summer  boarders,  have  the  languishing 
curves  of  the  American  version  of  the  French 
roof,  and  are  here  and  there  blistered  with  bay 
windows;  and  by  contrast  with  these,  the  un 
compromising  gables  and  angular  oblongness  of  the 
old  church  acquire  a  sort  of  grave  merit.  There  is 
no  folly  of  portico,  or  pediment,  or  pillars;  the 
front  and  flanks  of  the  edifice  are  as  blank  and  bare 
as  life  in  West  Pekin,  but  they  are  also  as  honest. 
It  is  well  built;  the  inhabitants  have,  of  course,  the 

45 


MRS.  FARRELL 

tradition  that  when  its  timbers  were  exposed  for 
some  modern  repairs,  the  oak  was  found  so  hard 
that  you  could  not  drive  a  nail  into  it.  From  time 
to  time  its  weary  expanses  of  clapboarding  are 
freshened  with  a  coat  of  white  paint,  under  which 
whatever  picturesque  effects  time  might  have  be 
stowed  are  scrupulously  smothered,  so  that  it  has 
not  a  stain  or  touch  of  decay  to  endear  it.  E very- 
spring  a  colony  of  misguided  swallows  stucco  the 
eaves  with  their  mud-nests,  placed  at  such  regular 
intervals  as  to  form  a  cornice  of  the  rude  material 
not  displeasing  to  the  eye  of  the  summer  boarder; 
and  every  spring  when  their  broods  are  half  fledged 
the  sexton  mounts  to  the  roof  and  knocks  away 
such  of  their  nests  as  he  can  reach,  strewing  the 
ground  with  the  cruel  wreck  and  slaughter.  But  he 
is  old  and  purblind,  and  a  fair  percentage  of  the 
swallows  escape  his  single  burst  of  murderous  zeal, 
to  wheel  and  shriek  around  the  grim  edifice  all  sum 
mer  long,  and  to  renew  their  hazardous  enterprise 
another  year. 

The  old  church  has  no  other  grace  than  they  give 
it,  as  it  stands  staring  white  on  the  border  of  the 
village  green,  and  sends  out  over  the  valleys  and  up 
lands  the  wild,  plangent  summons  of  its  Sabbath 
bell.  It  is  not  an  unmusical  note,  but  it  is  terrible, 
and  seems  always  to  warn  of  the  judgment  day,  so 
that  one  lounging  over  the  fields  or  through  the 
woods,  or  otherwise  keeping  away  from  the  sermon, 
must  hear  it  with  a  shudder  of  alarm.  It  is  a  bell 
to  bring  a  bird's-nesting  boy  to  his  knees;  and  to 
the  youth  of  West  Pekin  in  former  days  I  could 


MRS.   FARRELL 

imagine  it  a  peculiarly  awful  sound,  which  would 
pursue  them  through  life  and  in  all  their  wanderings 
over  the  sea  and  land.  It  could  now  no  longer  call 
many  youth  to  worship,  but  mostly  a  thinned  and 
faltering  congregation  of  old  men  and  women  re 
sponded  to  its  menace,  and  sparsely  scattered  them 
selves  among  the  long  rows  of  pews.  The  stalwart 
boys  and  ambitious,  eager  girls  had  emigrated  or 
married  out  of  the  town,  till  now  the  very  graves 
beside  the  church  received  none  but  aged  dead,  and 
the  newest  stones  hardly  remembered  any  one  under 
sixty.  From  time  to  time  an  octogenarian  or  non 
agenarian  wearied  of  his  place  in  the  census,  and 
irreparably  depopulated  West  Pekin,  to  the  loud 
sorrow  of  the  bell,  which  made  haste  to  number  his 
years  to  the  parish  as  soon  as  the  breath  was  out 
of  his  body.  The  few  young  people  who  remained 
in  the  town  after  marriage  limited  their  offspring 
to  the  fashionable  city  figures,  and  the  lingering 
grandsires  counted  their  posterity  in  the  lessening 
procession  which  would  soon  leave  the  family 
names  entirely  to  the  family  tombs.  Their  frosty 
heads  nodded  to  the  sermon  with  the  involuntary 
assents  of  slumber  or  of  palsy,  and  on  the  cushions 
beside  them  sat  their  gray  wives,  ruminating  with 
a  pleasant  fragrance  the  Sabbath  spray  of  dill  or 
caraway,  unvexed  by  thoughts  of  boys  disorderly 
in  the  back  pews  or  the  gallery,  or,  if  tormented  by 
vague  apprehensions,  awaking  to  find  their  fears 
and  boys  alike  an  empty  dream. 

Even  the  theology  preached  them  was  changed. 
It  was  the  same  faith,  no  doubt,  but  it  seemed  to 

47 


MRS.   FARRELL 

be  made  no  longer  the  personal  terror  it  had  been, 
nor  the  personal  comfort;  the  good  man  who  ad 
dressed  them  was  more  wont  to  dwell  upon  generali 
ties  of  reward  and  punishment,  and  abstractions  in 
morals  and  belief,  and  he  could  easily  have  been 
attainted  of  a  vague  liberality,  if  there  had  been 
vigor  of  faith  enough  left  in  his  congregation  to 
accuse  him.  But  faith,  like  all  life  in  West  Pekin, 
had  shrunken  till  one  might  say  it  rattled  in  its 
shell;  and  this  great  empty  church  seemed  all  the 
emptier  for  the  diminution  of  fixed  beliefs  as  to  the 
condition  of  sinners  in  the  world  to  come.  A  choir 
and  a  parlor  organ  rendered  most  of  the  psalms  or 
hymns  that  the  minister  gave  out,  and  when  the 
congregation  raised  its  cracked  basses  and  trebles 
in  song,  it  was  doubtless  an  acceptable  sacrifice,  but 
it  was  not  a  joyful  noise. 

In  West  Pekin  no  one  walks  who  can  drive,  even 
for  a  short  distance;  doubtless  because  of  the  mud 
of  spring  and  fall,  and  the  heavy  winter  snows, 
which  make  walking  in  New  England,  anywhere  off 
the  city  pave,  a  martyrdom,  three  fourths  of  the 
inhospitable  year;  and  Easton  watched  the  church 
people  arrive  in  their  dusty  open  buggies,  which 
they  led,  after  dismounting,  into  the  long  sheds 
beside  the  church,  hitching  their  horses  in  the 
stalls,  there  to  gnaw  the  deeply  nibbled  posts  and 
ineffectually  to  fight  the  embattled  flies,  and  ex 
change  faint  whinnies  and  murmurs  of  disappro 
bation  among  themselves. 

Easton  was  standing  at  the  hotel  door,  dressed 
with  whatever  of  New  York  nattiness  he  had  been 


MRS.   FARRELL 

able  to  transport  to  West  Pekin  in  the  small  valise 
he  had  allowed  himself.  He  was  not  a  man  of  so 
ciety  in  any  sense,  but  he  always,  upon  a  fixed  prin 
ciple,  kept  himself  scrupulously  tailored,  and  it 
would  have  been  a  disrespect  of  which  he  could  not 
be  capable,  to  appear  before  the  West  Pekin  con 
gregation  in  anything  but  his  best.  The  vehicles 
straggled  slowly  up  the  hill ;  the  bell  began  to  falter 
in  its  clamor,  and  to  toll  in  a  dismal  staccato  before 
it  should  stop  altogether ;  and  now  the  village  peo 
ple  issued  from  their  doors  and  moved  hurriedly 
across  the  green  to  the  church.  Easton  went  back 
for  a  moment  to  Gilbert's  room,  and  found  his 
friend,  whom  he  had  left  in  bed,  lazily  dressing. 
Gilbert  looked  at  him  in  the  glass,  and  said,  "I'm 
going  over  to  the  farm  when  I've  finished.  You'd 
better  come  too,  after  sermon." 

"I  dbn't  know.  Shall  you  be  on  the  lookout  for 
me?" 

"You  wouldn't  have  the  courage  to  hunt  me  up 
in  that  houseful  of  women?  All  right.  I'll  sit  on 
the  piazza  and  watch.  I'll  expect  you."  He  went 
on  tying  his  cravat,  while  the  other  took  his  way  to 
church,  and  entered  as  the  last  note  of  the  bell  was 
dying  away. 

The  choir  began  to  sing,  and  Easton  rose  with 
the  people  and  faced  the  singers.  Mrs.  Belle  Farrell 
stood  singing  from  the  same  book  with  Rachel 
Woodward,  and  she  cast  her  regard  carelessly  over 
the  church,  and  let  her  eyes  rest  upon  him  with 
visible  recognition. 

She  was  a  woman  whose  presence  would  have  been 
4  49 


MRS.   FARRELL 

magnificent  anywhere ;  here  her  grace  and  style  and 
beauty  simply  annulled  all  other  aspects,  and  a 
West  Pekin  congregation  could  never  have  looked 
so  old  and  thin  and  pale  and  awkward.  Easton 
did  not  know  music,  and  was  ignorant  that  she  sang 
with  courageous  error.  She  had  a  rich  voice,  from 
which  tragedy  would  have  come  ennobled,  but  she 
had  little  tune  or  time.  The  subdued  country  girl 
at  her  side  sang  truer  and  with  wiser  art.  Rachel 
was  then  twenty ;  her  scarcely  rounded  cheeks  had 
the  delicate  light  and  pallor  of  the  true  New  Eng 
land  type ;  her  hair  was  rather  brown  than  golden ; 
her  eyes  serenely  gray;  and  her  face,  when  she 
closed  her  lips,  composed  itself  instantly  into  a 
somewhat  austere  quiescence.  The  girl  glanced  at 
Easton  in  sympathy  with  her  companion — instinc 
tively,  perhaps,  and  perhaps  because  of  some  secret 
touch  or  push. 

The  sermon  was  of  the  little  captive  He 
brew  maid  who  remembered  the  famous  cures 
of  leprosy  by  a  prophet  of  her  nation,  and 
was  thus  a  means  to  the  healing  of  Naaman, 
her  Philistine  lord.  From  this  the  minister  drew 
the  moral  that  even  a  poor  slave  girl  was  not  so 
lowly  but  she  could  do  some  good;  he  did  not  at 
tempt  the  difficult  application  to  West  Pekin  con 
ditions.  From  the  sandy  desert  of  his  discourse  a 
dim  mirage  of  Oriental  fancies  rose  before  Easton, 
with  sterile  hills,  palms,  gleaming  lakes,  cities, 
temples  of  old  faith,  and  priestesses  who  had  the 
dark  still  eyes,  the  loose  overshadowing  hair,  the 
dusky  bloom  of  Mrs.  Farrell;  a  certain  familiarity 

50 


MRS.  FARRELL 

in  her  splendor  he  accounted  for  suddenly  by  re 
membering  a  figure  and  face  he  had  once  seen  in 
the  chorus  of  the  opera  of  Nabucco.  This  was  in 
his  mind  still  when  he  rose  and  confronted  the 
Babylonian  priestess  as  she  sang  the  closing  hymn 
in  the  West  Pekin  choir. 

Without,  the  July  noon  had  ripened  to  a  perfect 
mellow  heat  which  the  yesterday's  chill  kept  from 
excess,  and  over  all  the  world  was  the  unclouded 
cup  of  the  blue  heavens.  The  village  people  si 
lently  and  quickly  dispersed  to  their  houses,  and 
the  farmers  sought  their  different  vehicles  under  the 
sheds,  while  their  wives  stood  about  the  church  door 
and  in  a  still  way  talked  together;  as  fast  as  the 
carriages  came  up,  each  mounted  into  her  own, 
and  drove  off,  passing  Easton  as  he  strolled  down 
the  hillside  road  winding  away  from  the  village. 
The  weather  was  dry,  and  the  dust  powdered  the 
reddening  blackberries  of  the  wayside  and  gave  a 
gray  tone  to  the  foliage  of  the  drooping  elm  and 
birch  boughs,  and  to  the  branches  of  the  apple  trees 
thrust  across  the  stone  walls  and  fantastically 
dressed  with  wisps  caught  during  the  week  from 
towering  hay  wagons.  When  the  road  left  the  open 
hill  slopes  and  entered  a  wood,  Easton  yielded  to 
an  easy  perch  on  the  stone  wall  and  sat  flicking 
the  long,  slim  wood-plants  with  his  cane.  Be 
tween  the  walls  the  highway  was  bordered  all  along 
with  young  white  birches;  some  were  the  bigness 
round  of  a  girl's  waist,  and,  clasped  with  the  satiny 
smoothness  of  their  bark,  showed  a  delicate  snugness 
of  corsage  to  which  an  indwelling  dryad  might  have 


MRS.  FARRELL 

given  shape;  they  drooped  everywhere  about  in 
pretty  girlish  attitudes;  and  Easton,  whose  fancy 
was  at  once  reverent  and  rich,  as  that  of  an  un 
spoiled  young  man  may  be,  sat  there  in  a  sort  of 
courtship  of  their  beauty,  which  was  all  the  fresher 
in  him,  for  he  was  a  life-long  cockney,  and,  so  far 
from  sentimentalizing  Nature,  had  hardly  an  ac 
quaintance  with  her. 

He  had  started  on  his  stroll  with  the  unconfessed 
hope  that  the  road  might  somehow  bring  him  to 
Woodward  farm,  and  as  he  walked  he  had  been  up 
braiding  himself  for  his  irresolution,  without  being 
able  either  to  turn  back  or  boldly  to  ask  the  driver 
of  some  passing  team  his  way  to  the  farm.  In  the 
joy  of  this  coolness  and  silence  and  beauty  of  the 
woods  his  conscience  left  him  at  peace,  and  he 
lounged  upon  the  broad  top  of  the  wall  with  no  de 
sire  to  do  anything  but  remain  there,  when  a  wagon 
came  in  sight  under  the  meeting  tops  of  the  trees 
at  the  crest  of  the  hill,  and  his  heart  leaped  at  what 
he  now  knew  he  had  been  really  waiting  for.  Yet 
as  it  came  nearer  and  nearer  he  perceived  that  he 
had  been  waiting  for  it  with  no  motive  upon  which 
he  could  act;  and  he  felt  awkwardly  unaccounted 
for  where  he  was.  Mrs.  Farrell  was  driving  on  the 
front  seat,  and  behind  her  sat  Rachel  Woodward 
with  her  mother;  they  all  three  seemed  to  be  con 
cerned  about  some  part  of  the  equipage:  they 
leaned  forward  and  looked  anxiously  at  the  horse, 
which  presently,  as  they  came  to  a  little  slope, 
responded  to  whatever  fears  they  had  by  rearing 
violently  and  dashing  aside  into  a  clump  of  bushes, 

S2 


MRS.   FARRELL 

where  he  stood  breathing  hoarsely  till  Easton  ran 
up  and  took  him  by  the  head. 

"I  don't  think  you  need  get  out,"  he  said,  as 
the  women  rose.  "It's  only  something  the  matter 
with  the  holdback."  He  turned  the  horse  again  to 
the  road  and  began  to  examine  the  harness.  ' '  That's 
all,"  he  said;  "one  side  of  the  holdback  is  broken, 
and  lets  the  wagon  come  on  him.  If  I  had  a  piece 
of  twine —  Or,  never  mind."  He  took  his  hand 
kerchief  out  of  his  pocket. 

"Oh  no;  don't!"  pleaded  the  eldest  of  the 
women.  "We  sha'n't  need  it,  now.  It's  uphill  all 
the  rest  of  the  way  to  the  house." 

But  Easton  said,  "It  '11  be  safer,"  and  went  on  to 
supply  the  place  of  the  broken  strap,  while  Mrs. 
Belle  Farrell,  turning  upon  Rachel,  made  a  series  of 
faces  expressing  a  mock-heroical  gratitude.  Sud 
denly  she  gave  a  little  shriek  as  the  horse  darted 
off  with  an  ugly  spring  and  lurch.  "Oh,  do  stop 
him!  stop  him!"  she  implored,  and  Easton  had 
him  by  the  bridle  again  before  her  words  were 
spoken. 

"Well,  Mrs.  Woodward,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  ex 
citedly,  "I  should  whip  that  horse." 

"No,  don't  whip  him,"  said  the  elderly  woman. 
"I  don't  believe  he's  to  blame;  I  don't  think  he 
was  hitched  up  just  right  in  the  first  place.  The 
boys  said  there  was  something  the  matter  with  the 
harness;  but  they  guessed  it  would  go." 

"Very  well,"  answered  Mrs.  Farrell;  "he's  your 
horse,  but  if  he  were  mine,  I  should  whip  him; 
that's  what  I  should  do." 

53 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Her  eyes  lightened  as  she  stooped  forward  to 
gather  up  the  reins,  which  had  been  twitched  out 
of  her  hands,  and  the  horse  started  and  panted 
again,  while  Easton  stood  beside  him  in  grave  em 
barrassment.  He  made  several  efforts  to  clear  his 
throat,  and  then  said,  huskily,  "What  do  you  want 
me  to  do?  Shall  I  lead  him?  I  don't  know  much 
about  horses." 

He  addressed  himself  doubtfully  to  the  whole 
party,  but  Mrs.  Woodward  answered:  "Won't  you 
please  get  in  alongside  of  that  lady?  I  shouldn't 
want  he  should  think  he  had  scared  us;  and  he 
would,  if  we  let  you  lead  him. ' ' 

Easton  obediently  mounted  to  Mrs.  Farrell's 
side.  She  was  going  to  offer  him  the  reins,  but 
Mrs.  Woodward  interposed.  "No,  you  drive,  Mrs. 
Farrell,  so  long  as  he  behaves;'*  and  the  horse  now 
moved  tremulously  but  peaceably  off.  "We're 
very  much  obliged  to  you  for  what  you've  done," 
she  added;  and  then  Easton  sat  beside  Mrs.  Far 
rell,  with  nothing  to  do  but  to  finger  his  cane  and 
study  the  horse's  mood.  He  glanced  shyly  at  her 
face;  from  her  silks  breathed  those  intoxicating 
mysterious  odors  of  the  toilette;  the  light  wind 
blew  him  the  odor  of  her  hair ;  when  by  and  by  the 
horse  began  to  sadden,  under  the  long  uphill  strain, 
into  a  repentant  walk,  and  she  gave  him  a  smart 
cut  with  the  whip,  Easton  winced  as  if  he  had  him 
self  been  struck.  But  the  lady  paid  him  very  little 
attention  for  some  time;  then,  when  her  anxieties 
about  the  horse  seemed  to  have  subsided  somewhat, 
she  looked  him  in  the  face  and  demanded,  "If  you 

54 


MRS.   FARRELL 

know  so  little  about  horses  how  came  you  to  stop 
him  so  well?" 

"I  don't  know,"  said  Easton.  "It  was  rather 
sudden;  I  didn't — I  had  no  choice — " 

"Oh,"  exulted  Mrs.  Farrell,  "then  if  you  could 
have  chosen,  you'd  have  let  him  go  dancing  on  with 
us.  I  withdraw  my  gratitude  for  your  kindness. 
But,"  she  added,  owning  her  recognition  of  him 
with  a  courage  he  found  charming,  "I'll  thank 
you  again  for  picking  up  that  little  book  of  mine, 
yesterday.  You  certainly  might  have  chosen  to 
let  it  lie." 

Easton,  if  brought  to  bay  in  his  shyness,  had  a 
desperate  sort  of  laugh,  in  which  he  uttered  his 
heart  as  freely  as  a  child;  he  set  his  teeth  hard, 
and  while  he  looked  at  you  with  gleaming  eyes  the 
laughter  gurgled  helplessly  from  his  throat.  It 
had  a  sound  that  few  could  hear  without  liking. 
It  made  Mrs.  Farrell  laugh  too,  and  he  began  to 
breathe  more  freely  in  the  rarefied  atmosphere 
that  had  at  first  fluttered  his  pulses.  She  spoke 
from  time  to  time  to  Mrs.  Woodward  or  Rachel, 
who,  the  first  excitement  over,  appeared  distinctly 
to  relinquish  him  to  her  as  part  of  that  summer- 
boarding  world  with  which  they  could  have  only 
business  relations. 

They  came  presently  to  a  turn  in  the  road  which 
brought  the  farmhouse  in  sight,  and  Mrs.  Farrell 
lifted  her  whip  to  encourage  the  horse  for  the  sharper 
ascent  now  before  him;  but  she  abruptly  dropped 
her  hand,  and  bowed  her  face  on  the  back  of  it. 

Then  very  gravely,  "I  beg  your  pardon,"  she 
55 


MRS.  FARRELL 

said  to  Easton,  "but  I  don't  know  how  we  are 
going  to  account  for  you  to  the  people  in  the  house. 
What  should  you  say  you  were  doing  here?" 

"Upon  my  word,"  said  Easton,  "I  don't  know." 

Mrs.  Farrell  asked  as  seriously  as  before,  "Were 
you  going  anywhere  in  particular?  Have  we  taken 
you  out  of  your  way  ?  This  is  Woodward  farm. ' ' 

"Yes,  I  know  it.  I  was  coming  here  to  find  a 
friend." 

"Well,  then,  you  have  a  choice  this  time.  You 
can  say  we  were  passing  you  on  the  way  and  we 
gave  you  a  lift ;  or  you  can  say  that  you  saved  us  all 
from  destruction  and  got  in  to  see  us  safe  home. 
You'd  better  choose  the  first;  nobody  '11  ever  be 
lieve  this  horse  was  running  away." 

"We  won't  say  anything  about  it,"  Easton  sug 
gested.  "That  will  be  the  easiest  way." 

"  Oh,  do  you  think  so  ? "  cried  Mrs.  Farrell.  ' '  Wait 
till  you're  asked  by  each  of  our  lady  boarders." 

They  now  drove  out  of  the  woods  and  came  upon 
a  shelving  green  in  front  of  the  farmhouse.  Here, 
at  one  side  of  the  door,  there  were  evidences  of 
attempted  croquet.  The  wickets  were  in  the  ground 
and  the  mallets  were  scattered  about;  the  balls 
had  rolled  downhill  into  desuetude;  there  was  not 
a  level  in  West  Pekin  vast  enough  for  a  croquet 
ground.  On  the  piazza,  fronting  the  road  were 
most  of  the  lady  boarders;  the  five  regular  hus 
bands  were  also  there,  and  Gilbert,  lounging  on  a 
step  at  the  feet  of  his  sister-in-law,  dressed  the 
balance  disordered  by  the  absence  of  the  irregular 
sixth.  He  rose  in  visible  amazement  to  see  Easton 

56 


MRS.  FARRELL 

arrive  in  the  Woodward  wagon  at  the  side  of  Mrs. 
Farrell,  and  walked  down  to  the  barn  near  which 
she  had  chosen  to  stop.  The  other  spectators,  pene 
trated  by  the  sense  that  something  must  have  hap 
pened,  ranged  themselves  in  attitudes  of  expec 
tancy  along  the  edge  of  the  piazza.  Mrs.  Wood 
ward  and  Rachel,  dismounting,  renounced  all  part 
in  the  satisfaction  of  the  public  curiosity  by  entering 
the  house  at  a  side  door,  but  Mrs.  Farrell  marched, 
with  the  two  gentlemen  beside  her,  up  to  where 
Mrs.  Gilbert  sat,  and  gave  a  succinct  statement  of 
the  affair,  which  neither  omitted  to  celebrate 
Easton's  action  nor  overpraised  it.  She  ended  by 
saying,  "I  wish  you'd  be  good  enough  to  introduce 
my  preserver,  Mrs.  Gilbert." 

"I  will,  the  very  instant  I  have  his  acquaintance," 
replied  Mrs.  Gilbert.  "William!" 

"It's  my  friend  Mr.  Easton.  Easton — present 
you  to  Mrs.  Gilbert." 

"I'm  glad  to  see  you,  Mr.  Easton,"  said  Mrs. 
Gilbert,  shaking  hands ;  "you're  no  stranger.  This 
is  Mrs.  Farrell,  whose  life  you  have  just  had  the 
pleasure  of  preserving.  Mrs.  Farrell,  let  me  intro 
duce  Mr.  Gilbert,  also." 

Mrs.  Farrell  kept  her  eyes  steadily  on  the  gentle 
men,  and  bowed  gravely  at  their  names.  Then  she 
gathered  her  skirt  into  her  hand  to  mount  the 
step,  gave  them  a  slight  nod,  smiled  with  radiant 
indifference  upon  the  rest  of  the  company,  and  dis 
appeared  indoors.  Mrs.  Gilbert  made  proclama 
tion  of  the  facts  to  the  ladies  next  her,  and  casually 
introduced  her  guests  to  two  or  three  who  presently 

57 


MRS.   FARRELL 

left  them  to  her  again,  as  they  went  to  give  them 
selves  the  last  touches  before  dinner.  Mrs.  Gilbert 
then  turned  to  Easton  and  said,  "Mrs.  Farrell  ran 
a  very  fortunate  risk.  I  don't  believe  anything  less 
would  have  brought  you  here." 

"Oh  yes,"  answered  Easton,  "I  was  on  my 
way.  The  only  difference  is  that  I  rode  instead  of 
walking." 

"Well,  no  matter,  so  you've  come.  I've  been 
persuading  my  brother  to  stay  to  dinner,  and  he 
says  he  will,  if  Easton  will.  Will  you?" 

At  every  word  Mrs.  Gilbert  kept  studying  Eas- 
ton's  face,  which  the  young  man  had  a  trick  of  half 
averting  from  any  woman  who  spoke  to  him,  with 
fugitive  glances  at  her,  from  time  to  time.  The 
light  of  frank  liking  for  him  came  into  Mrs.  Gil 
bert's  eyes  when  he  turned  with  a  sort  of  hopeless 
appeal  to  Gilbert,  and  then  said,  "Yes.  I  shall  be 
very  glad  to  stay." 

"You're  ever  so  good  to  be  glad,"  she  said,  "but 
after  saving  one  lady's  life,  you  couldn't  do  less 
than  dine  with  another.  My  brother  says  you  and 
he  are  to  be  at  West  Pekin  for  a  fortnight.  That's 
very  nice;  and  I  hope  you'll  come  here  often.  We 
consider  any  gentleman  a  treat;  and  the  only  pain 
ful  thing  about  having  two  brilliant  young  New 
Yorkers  in  West  Pekin  is  that  perhaps  we  can  never 
quite  live  up  to  our  privileges." 

"One  of  us  might  go  away,"  said  Easton,  taking 
heart  to  return  this  easy  banter,  but  speaking  with 
a  quick,  embarrassed  sigh.  "Do  you  think  you 
could  live  up  to  the  other?" 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Mrs.  Gilbert  smiled  her  approval  of  his  daring 
and  of  his  sigh. 

"We  will  make  an  effort  to  deserve  you  both. 
Has  your  friend  here  told  you  anything  about  us?" 

"How  can  you  ask  it,  Susan?  Did  you  ever 
know  me  to  be  guilty  of  such  behavior  toward  you  ? ' ' 
demanded  Gilbert. 

' '  No,  William,  I  never  did ;  and  I  must  add  that 
it's  no  fault  of  yours  if  I  didn't.  He  means,  Mr. 
Easton,  that  he's  been  generous  to  a  little  foible 
of  mine.  I  do  like  to  lecture  upon  people  when  I 
can  get  a  fresh,  uncorrupted  listener,  I  won't  deny 
it;  and  I  should  have  been  inconsolable  if  William 
had  exploited  us  to  you,  as  he  certainly  would  have 
done  if  he  had  liked  to  expatiate  and  expound — 
which  he  doesn't ;  and  I  believe  men  never  do,  how 
ever  much  they  like  being  expatiated  and  ex 
pounded  to.  Well  now,  as  I'm  not  going  to  have 
any  partiality  shown  by  any  guests  of  mine,  and  as 
I'm  going  to  introduce  you  to  every  lady  at  dinner 
recollect,  you've  promised  to  stay — I'm  going  to 
give  you  a  little  synopsis  of  each  of  them.  Mrs. 
Farrell  you've  already  had  the  pleasure  of  meeting ; 
once  in  the  berry  pasture,  yesterday  afternoon,  and 
once  this  morning  when  you  saved  her  life — yes, 
her  life;  I  insist  upon  giving  the  adventure  a  decent 
magnitude,  and  I  will  listen  to  no  mannish,  mini 
fying  scruples — saved  her  life;  and  so  I  will  only 
say  that  she  is  young,  beautiful,  and  singularly 
attractive.  The  absence  of  any  perceptible  husband 
does  not  necessarily  imply  that  she  is  a  widow; 
though  in  this  case  it  does  happen  that  Mrs.  Far- 

59 


MRS.  FARRELL 

rell  is  a  widow.  Have  I  got  the  logical  sequences 
all  right,  William?  Yes?  Well,  I'm  glad  of  that; 
not  that  I  care  the  least  for  them,  but  I  like  to  con 
sult  the  weakness  of  a  sex  that  can't  reason  without 
them.  As  I  was  saying,  she  is  young,  beautiful, 
and  attractive;  the  fact  might  not  strike  you  at 
first,  but  she  is.  The  only  drawback  is  her  extreme 
unconsciousness.  But  for  all  that,  if  I  were  a  man, 
I  should  simply  go  raving  distracted  over  Mrs. 
Belle  Farrell." 

"I  won't  speak  for  Easton,"  said  Gilbert,  "but 
I  think  men  generally  prefer  a  spice  of  coquetry  in 
the  objects  of  their  raving  distraction.  This  sim 
plicity,  this  excessive  singleness  of  motive — it 
doesn't  wear  well." 

Mrs.  Gilbert  owned,  "It  does  render  one  forgetful 
and  liable  to  accidents,  but  it  isn't  the  worst  fault. 
You  gentlemen  are  very  exacting ;  I  see  that  you're 
bent  upon  decrying  every  one  of  our  ladies,  what 
ever  I  say  of  them,  and  I  believe  I  shall  leave  you 
to  form  your  own  perverse  opinions.  Yes,  I've 
changed  my  mind,  Mr.  Easton,  and  instead  of  lec 
turing  you  on  them  beforehand,  I  shall  confine 
myself  to  satisfying  any  curiosity  you  may  happen 
to  feel  about  them  when  you've  seen  them.  Isn't 
that  the  way  a  man  would  do? " 

' '  Perhaps, ' '  answered  Easton.  ' '  But  he  wouldn't 
like  it — in  a  woman." 

"I  dare  say.  That's  his  tyrannical  unreason 
ableness.  What  was  the  sermon  about  this  morn 
ing?  Mrs.  Belle  Farrell?" 

It  was  impossible  not  to  enjoy  the  mock  innocence 
60 


MRS.   FARRELL 

with  which  Mrs.  Gilbert  put  this  question.  Easton's 
eyes  responded  to  the  fun  of  it,  while  his  blushes 
came  and  went,  and  he  kept  thrusting  his  cane  into 
the  turf  where  he  stood,  just  below  the  step  on 
which  she  sat.  She  went  on:  "We  seldom  go  to 
church  from  the  farm;  we  come  to  the  country  to 
enjoy  ourselves.  Mrs.  Farrell  goes,  and  sings  in 
the  choir,  I  think.  Some  of  us  went  to  hear  her  sing 
once,  and  came  home  perfectly  satisfied.  She's  a 
great  friend  of  young  Miss  Woodward's,  and  is  the 
only  boarder  admitted  into  the  landlord's  family  on 
terms  of  social  equality.  The  regime  at  Woodward 
farm  is  very  peculiar,  Mr.  Easton,  and  will  form  the 
topic  of  a  future  discourse.  I  shall  also  want  to 
inquire  your  views  of  the  best  method  of  extinguish 
ing  talent  in  the  industrial  classes ;  I  believe  you've 
experimented  in  that  way."  Easton  lifted  his 
downcast  face  and  looked  at  Gilbert  with  a  queer 
alarm  that  afforded  Mrs.  Gilbert  visible  joy. 
"Miss  Woodward  is  the  victim  of  a  capacity,  lately 
developed,  for  drawing;  your  friend  Mrs.  Farrell 
has  fostered  this  abnormal  condition,  and  it  is  the 
part  of  humanity  to  stop  it.  Now  perhaps  your 
experience  with  Mr.  Rogers — 

The  dinner  bell  sounded  as  Mrs.  Gilbert  reached 
forward  and  appealingly  touched  Easton's  arm  with 
her  fan;  and  she  stopped. 

"Go  on,"  said  Gilbert;  "you  might  as  well  have 
your  say  out  now,  if  there's  anything  left  on  your 
mind.  Easton's  made  up  his  mind  to  renounce  me, 
and  you  can't  do  me  any  more  harm." 

"Stuff!  Mr,  Easton  and  I  understand  each 
61 


MRS.   FARRELL 

other,  and  we  know  well  enough  that  you  haven't 
been  disloyal  to  him.  At  least  we  won't  believe  it 
on  the  insinuation  of  a  malicious,  backbiting  old 
woman;  if  Mr.  Easton  has  any  doubts  of  you,  I'll 
teach  him  better.  Come,  it's  dinner.  This  is  a 
great  day  with  us:  we  have  our  first  string-beans, 
to-day;  that's  one  of  the  reasons  why  I  asked  you 
to  stop." 


Chapter  V 

MRS.  GILBERT  kept  her  word,  and  pre 
sented  the  young  men  to  each  of  the 
boarders;  but  for  all  that,  the  talk  did 
not  become  general.  After  dinner  she  went  off  for 
a  nap,  and  the  young  men  both  followed  Mrs.  Far- 
rell  to  the  piazza,  where  they  seemed  to  forget  that 
there  was  anyone  else.  She  was  very  amiable  to 
both,  but  a  little  meek  and  subdued  in  her  manner; 
if  she  encouraged  one  more  than  the  other,  it  was 
Gilbert.  She  was  disposed  to  talk  of  serious  things, 
and  said  that  one  could  not  realize  the  New  England 
Sabbath  in  town  as  one  could  in  the  country;  that 
here  in  these  hills  the  stillness,  the  repose,  seemed 
to  have  something  almost  holy  about  it.  Two 
young  girls  in  gay  flannel  walking  skirts  and  branch 
ing  shade  hats  passed  Mrs.  Farrell  where  she  sat 
with  her  court,  and  she  who  passed  nearest  dropped 
a  demure  glance  out  of  the  corner  of  her  eye,  and  a 
demurely  a-rch  "good-by"  from  the  corner  of  her 
mouth. 

"What  for?"  asked  Mrs.  Farrell,  breaking 
abruptly  from  her  pensive  mood. 

"Those  brakes,"  said  the  girl  over  her  shoulder, 
having  now  got  by. 

1 '  Oh,  come !  Won't  you  go,  too  ? "  cried  Mrs.  Far- 
63 


MRS.   FARRELL 

rell.  "It's  an  old  engagement.  Wait,  please!"  she 
called  to  the  girls,  and  ran  in  to  get  her  hat,  while 
they  loitered  down  the  path. 

Gilbert  walked  forward  to  join  them,  and  Easton 
stayed  for  Mrs.  Farrell,  who  delayed  a  little,  and 
then  came  out  in  walking-gear  which  had  the  ad 
vantage  over  the  dresses  of  the  young  girls  that 
foliage  or  plumage  has  over  dress  always — it 
seemed  part  of  her. 

"If  you'll  be  so  kind — yes,"  she  said,  giving 
Easton  her  light  shawl,  while  she  fitted  her  hat 
cord  under  the  knot  of  her  hair.  "  It's  a  little  coolish 
sometimes  in  the  deep  woods,  and  it's  best  to  bring 
one.  Don't  you  think,"  she  asked,  dazzling  him 
with  the  radiant,  immortal  youth  of  her  glance  and 
smile,  "that  the  worst  thing  about  growing  older  is 
that  you  have  to  be  so  careful  about  your  miserable, 
perishable  body?  I  hope  I've  not  made  you  do 
anything  against  your  principles,  Mr.  Easton,  in 
getting  you  to  go  with  me  after  brakes  on  Sunday  ? 
We  don't  often  do  such  things,  ourselves." 

"No,"  said  Easton;  "unfortunately,  I  have  no 
principles  on  that  point.  I  suppose  it's  a  thing  to 
be  regretted." 

"Oh  yes,  indeed!"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  earnestly. 
"I  think  one  ought  always  to  be  one  thing  or  the 
other.  I  find  nothing  so  wretched  as  this  sort  of 
betwixt-and-betweenity  that  most  people  live  in 
nowadays ;  and  I  envy  Rachel  Woodward  her  fixed 
habits  of  religious  observance.  I  wish  she  could 
have  gone  with  us  this  afternoon;  but  the  Wood 
wards  never  do.  You  must  get  acquainted  with  her, 

64 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Mr.  Easton.  She's  a  splendid  girl;  she  has  a  great 
deal  of  talent  and  a  great  deal  of  character;  more 
than  all  of  us  lady  boarders  put  together — except 
Mrs.  Gilbert,  of  course." 

It  vaguely  troubled  Easton,  he  did  not  know 
why,  to  have  her  talk  of  Rachel  Woodward;  at 
that  moment  it  vexed  him  that  there  should  be  any 
other  woman  in  the  world  than  herself.  But  he 
contrived  to  say  that  Mrs.  Gilbert  had  mentioned 
Miss  Woodward's  talent  for  drawing. 

''Isn't  she  nice — Mrs.  Gilbert?"  asked  Mrs. 
Farrell,  looking  into  Easton's  face,  and  no  doubt 
seeing  there  a  consciousness  of  his  having  heard 
from  Mrs.  Gilbert  something  not  to  her  advantage. 
"She's  the  only  one  of  our  boarders  that  one  cares 
to  talk  with;  she's  such  a  humorous  old  thing  that 
I  like  to  hear  her  even  when  I  know  she's  looking 
me  through  and  through.  She's  a  very  keen  ob 
server,  and  such  a  wonderful  judge  of  character! 
Don't  you  think  so?" 

"I  hardly  know;  I'm  scarcely  acquainted  with 
her  or  the  people  she  talks  about." 

"To  be  sure.  But  then,  I  think  you  can  often 
see  whether  a  person  understands  people,  even  if 
you  don't  know  any  of  them." 

"Oh  yes — yes,"  answered  Easton. 

They  had  crossed  the  road  from  the  farmhouse 
and,  traversing  some  sloping  meadows,  were  at  the 
border  of  the  wood  in  which  the  tall  brakes  grew, 
with  delicate  shapes  of  fern  slowly  waving  and 
swaying  in  the  breeze.  He  was  offering  her  his 
hand  to  help  her  over  the  wall  into  the  wood,  and 
5  6S 


MRS.   FARRELL 

she  was  throwing  half  her  elastic  weight  upon  his 
happy  arm.  Gilbert  and  the  young  girls  were  far 
ahead  among  the  brakes,  which  their  movement 
tossed  about  them  with  a  continual,  gracious  rise 
and  fall  of  the  stately  plumes,  the  bright  colors  of 
the  girls'  dresses  deepening  their  tint  as  they  glim 
mered  through  the  undulant  greenery. 

"How  lovely!"  cried  Mrs.  Farrell.  She  chose  to 
sit  still  a  moment  on  the  wall.  "And  isn't  your 
friend  superb  in  his  white  flannel  and  his  planterish- 
looking  hat  ?  When  I  was  a  little  girl  I  was  travel 
ing  with  my  father  on  the  Mississippi,  and  one 
night  a  New  Orleans  boat  landed  alongside  of  us. 
The  most  that  I  can  remember  is  those  iron  baskets 
of  burning  pine-knots  they  stick  into  the  shore, 
and  the  slim,  dark  young  Southerners,  in  white 
linen  from  head  to  foot,  as  they  came  on  and  off 
the  boat  in  the  red  light.  I  felt  then  that  I  never 
could  marry  anybody  but  a  young  Southerner  in 
white  linen.  Your  friend  reminds  me  of  them. 
But  he  isn't  Southern?" 

"No;  he  was  South  before  the  war,  awhile,  and 
he  tried  a  cotton  plantation  after  the  war;  but  he's 
a  New-Yorker." 

"How  picturesque  he  is!"  sighed  Mrs.  Farrell. 
"Was  he  a  soldier?" 

"Yes.    He's  Major  Gilbert,  if  you  like." 

"Was  that  where  you  met  him,  in  the  army?" 

"Yes." 

"And  were  you  a  major,  too?" 

"I  went  in  as  a  private,"  said  Easton. 

"But  you  didn't  come  out  a  private?" 
66 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Our  regiment  suffered  a  great  deal,  and  the 
promotions  were  pretty  rapid." 

''And  so  you  came  out  a  captain?" 

"Not  exactly." 

"A  major — a  colonel?" 

"I  couldn't  very  well  help  it." 

"Oh,  I  dare  say  you're  not  to  blame!"  cried  Mrs. 
Farrell.  "You  and  Mr. — Major  Gilbert,  were 
you  in  the  same  regiment?" 

"Yes.  I  owed  my  first  commission  to  his  in 
terest.  He  was  my  captain  before  I  got  my 
company." 

"Well,  how  was  it,  then,  that  you  came  out  a 
colonel  and  he  only  came  out  a  major?"  asked 
Mrs.  Farrell,  innocently. 

Easton  turned  about  and  looked  after  the  others, 
whose  voices,  in  talk  and  laughter,  came  over  the 
bracken  with  a  light,  hollow  sound  that  voices 
have  in  the  woods. 

"Oh,  don't  snub  me!"  implored  Mrs.  Farrell; 
"I  didn't  mean  to  ask  anything  wrong.  You 
soldiers  are  always  so  queer  about  the  war;  one 
would  think  you  were  ashamed  of  it." 

"It  was  full  of  unjust  chances,"  answered  Easton, 
almost  fiercely.  "All  that  I  did  Gilbert  would  have 
done  better,  and  if  he  had  done  it  he  would  have 
got  the  promotion  that  I  got.  I  ought  to  have  re 
fused  it;  it's  my  lasting  shame  and  sorrow  that  I 
didn't."  A  look  of  strange  dismay  and  of  self- 
contempt  came  into  Easton 's  face  with  the  last 
words,  which  sounded  like  the  expression  of  an  old 
remorse. 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Oh,  excuse  me!"  said  Mrs.  Farrell  with  a  quick 
sympathy  of  tone.  "I've  made  you  talk  of  some 
thing — I  didn't  think — your  men's  friendships  are 
so  much  more  tenderly  brought  up  than  women's, 
that  a  woman  can  scarcely  understand,"  she  added, 
a  little  mockingly;  but  she  made  obvious  haste  to 
get  away  from  the  subject  that  annoyed  him. 

"Here  are  tall  enough  brakes,"  she  said,  "if  it's 
tallness  we're  after;  but  I  think  we'd  better  get 
ferns.  I  want  to  show  you  a  place  down  here  in  the 
hollow  where  I  found  some  maidenhair  the  other 
day.  Don't  you  think  that's  the  prettiest  of  the 
ferns?  Did  you  ever  find  it  in  any  part  of  the 
South  where  you  were  stationed?  I  should  fancy 
it  might  be  in  the  Everglades — or  some  other  damp 
place." 

"I  don't  know  what  it  is,"  said  Easton,  absently. 

"Not  know  maidenhair?  Then  I've  the  chance 
t3  show  you  something  novel,  as  well  as  very  pretty. 
Come!"  She  sprang  lightly  from  the  wall  and 
swept  through  the  bowing  brakes  and  down  the 
slope  of  the  hollow  to  a  spot  where  clustering 
maples,  flinging  their  shadows  one  upon  another, 
made  a  cool  gloom  beneath  their  boughs,  and  the 
delicate  maidenhair  balanced  its  crest  upon  its 
slender  purple  stems  and  trembled  in  the  silent  air. 
"Here,  here!"  called  Mrs.  Farrell.  "Did  you  ever 
see  anything  lovelier?  But  doesn't  it  seem  a  pity 
to  pull  it?  Well,  it  must  die  for  women,  as  hum 
ming-birds  and  pheasants  do;  we  can't  look  pretty 
without  them,  poor  things!  I'm  going  to  sit  down 
here,  Mr,  Easton,  and  you're  going  to  gather 

68 


MRS.  FARRELL 

maidenhair  for  me  and  show  your  taste;  you 
haven't  experience  in  it,  but  you  are  to  have 
instinct." 

She  sat  down  on  the  broad  flat  top  of  a  rock,  and 
though  her  seat  was  in  a  spot  where  the  slighter 
texture  of  the  shade  let  the  sunlight  flicker  through 
upon  her,  she  gave  a  slight  tremor  and  shrugged 
her  shoulders.  "You  must  let  me  have  my  shawl, 
Mr.  Easton — my  poor  health,  you  know;  there's 
rheumatism  and  typhoid  fever  in  every  breath  of 
this  delicious  air." 

He  went  to  lay  the  shawl  upon  her  shoulders 
reverently,  but  she  dragged  it  down  and  adjusted 
it  about  her  waist  in  a  very  much  prettier  effect. 
"There,  now,  give  me  your  hat.  One  of  the  penal 
ties  that  a  gentleman  pays  for  the  pleasure  of  going 
braking  with  a  lady  is  to  have  his  hat  trimmed  with 
ferns  and  to  be  made  to  look  silly.  You  may  have 
your  revenge  in  trimming  my  hat."  She  began  to 
undo  the  elastic  from  her  hair;  but  there  were  hair 
pins  upon  which  it  was  entangled,  and  she  dropped 
her  arms  from  the  attempt,  and  with  a  quick,  "Ah ! ' ' 
she  tried  to  unloose  her  glove.  It  was  fastened  by 
one  of  those  little  clasps  which  are  so  hard  to  undo, 
and  after  many  attempts  she  was  obliged  to  look  up 
at  Easton  in  despair. 

"May  I  try  to  help  you?"  he  dared  to  ask. 

Why,  if  you  will  be  so  very  kind, ' '  she  answered, 
and  she  held  out  her  beautiful  wrist,  from  which 
her  hand  drooped  like  a  flower  from  its  stem.  It 
was  a  task  of  some  moments,  and  the  young  man 
wrought  at  it  in  silence ;  when  it  was  done,  she  did 


MRS.  FARRELL 

not  instantly  withdraw  her  hand,  but  "Oh,  is  it 
really  finished?"  she  asked,  and  then  took  it  from 
him  and  pulled  off  the  glove.  She  put  it  up  to  her 
hair  again,  and  began  to  feel  about  with  those 
women  fingers  that  seem  to  have  all  the  five  senses 
in  their  tips;  but  now  they  were  wise  in  vain. 
"I'm  afraid,  Mr.  Easton,"  she  appealed  with  a  well- 
embarrassed  little  laugh,  "that  I  must  tax  your 
kindness  once  more.  Would  you  be  so  very  good  as 
to  look  what  can  be  the  matter?"  and  she  turned 
the  wonder  of  her  neck  toward  him  and  bent  down 
her  head.  "Is  it  caught,  anywhere?" 

"It's  caught,"  he  answered,  gravely,  "on  a  hair 
pin." 

"Oh  dear!"  sighed  Mrs.  Farrell. 

"May  I?"  asked  Easton,  after  a  pause* 

"Why — yes — please,"  she  answered,  faintly. 

He  knelt  down  on  the  rock  beside  her  and  with 
trembling  hands  touched  the  warm,  fragrant,  silken 
mass,  and  lightly  disengaged  the  string.  When  he 
handed  her  the  hat  she  thanked  him  for  it  very 
sweetly,  and  with  an  air  of  simple  gratitude  laid  it 
in  her  lap,  and  drew  out  its  long,  hanging  ribbons 
through  her  fingers.  She  did  this  looking  with  a 
downcast,  absent  gaze  at  her  hat.  When  she  lifted 
her  eyes  again  they  were  full  of  a  gentle  sadness. 
"I  hope  you  won't  think  I  spoke  too  lightly  of  the 
war  and  of  soldiers,  just  now." 

"I  can't  think  you  spoke  amiss,*'  he  answered, 
fervently. 

"I  am  sure  I  meant  nothing  amiss,"  said  Mrs. 
Farrell,  humbly.  "But  everything  one  does  or 

70 


MRS.  FARRELL 

says  in  this  world,"  she  continued,  "is  so  liable  to 
misconstruction,  that  if  one  values — if  one  cares 
for  the  opinion  of  others,  one  feels  like  doing  almost 
anything  to  prevent  it." 

Her  eyes  fell  again,  and  she  twisted  the  ribbons  of 
her  hat  into  long  curls.  "I'm  glad  that  at  least  you 
understood  me,  and  I  do  thank  you — yes,  more 
than  you  can  know.  How  still  and  beautiful  it  is 
here!  Do  you  know,  I  sometimes  think  that  the 
boundary,  the  invisible  wall  between  the  two  worlds, 
is  nowhere  so  thin  as  in  the  deep  woods  like  this?" 
Mrs.  Farrell  looked  up  at  East  on  with  the  eyes  of 
a  nun.  "It  seems  as  if  one  could  d/aw  nearer  to 
better  influences  here  than  anywhere  else.  Not,  of 
course,  but  what  one  can  be  good  anywhere  if  one 
wants  to  be,  but  it  isn't  everywhere  that  one  does 
want  to  be  good.  Don't  laugh  at  my  moralizing, 
please,"  she  besought  him.  "There,  take  your  hat. 
I  won't  make  a  victim  of  you.  I  know  you'd  hate 
to  wear  ferns." 

Easton  protested  that  though  he  had  never  worn 
ferns,  he  did  not  believe  he  should  hate  to  wear 
them. 

"No  matter,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  "the  mood  is 
past,  now;  but  you'd  better  pull  a  few  of  them, 
because  one  mustn't  come  for  ferns  without  getting 
them." 

She  put  together  in  pretty  clusters  the  ferns  with 
which  he  heaped  her  lap,  holding  them  up  from 
time  to  time  and  viewing  them  critically  to  get  the 
effect,  and  talked  as  she  worked,  while  he  reclined 
on  a  sloping  rock  near  by.  ' '  Isn't  that  rather  nice  ? ' ' 


MRS.  FARRELL 

she  asked,  displaying  the  finest  group,  and  letting 
the  tips  of  the  ferns  drip  through  her  fingers  as  she 
softly  caressed  their  spray.  "  I  suppose  you'll  laugh 
if  I  tell  you  what  my  great  passion  in  life  would  be, 
if  I  could  indulge  a  great  passion — millinery! 
Bonnets,  caps,  hats,  ribbons,  feathers!"  Nothing 
so  enraptures  a  man  as  to  hear  the  woman  of  his 
untold  love  belittle  herself;  it  intoxicates  him  that 
this  adorable  preciousness  can  hold  itself  cheap — 
as  Mrs.  Farrell  possibly  knew.  "You  know,"  she 
went  on,  "I  think  I  have  some  little  artistic  talent 
— not  really  enough  for  painting,  but  quite  enough 
for  clothes.  I  might  set  up  a  studio,  and  everybody 
would  smile  on  my  efforts,  but  if  I  set  up  a  shop, 
nobody  would  associate  with  me.  You  wouldn't, 
yourself !  Don't  pretend  to  be  so  much  better  than 
other  people,"  cried  Mrs.  Farrell,  with  nothing  of 
the  convent  left  in  her  look. 

"I  don't  know  about  being  better,"  said  Easton. 
"But  I've  lived  too  little  in  the  world  to  be 
quite  of  it,  I  suppose.  I'm  afraid  I  am  not 
shocked  at  the  notion  of  anybody's  being  a  milliner 
that  likes." 

1 1  Oh  yes,  I  know.  Cheap  ideas  of  equality.  But 
you  wouldn't  marry  a  milliner,  if  she  was  ever  such 
a  genius  in  her  art." 

"If  I  were  in  love  with  her,  and  she  were  in  love 
with  me  and  would  have  me,  I  would  marry  her. 
But  why  do  you  make  marrying  the  test  of  a  man's 
respect  for  a  woman?" 

"Isn't  it?" 

Easton  pondered  awhile.  "Well,  yes,  it  does 
72 


MRS.   FARRELL 

seem  to  be,"  he  said,  a  little  sadly.    "But  it  narrows 
the  destiny  of  half  the  world." 

"Are  you  woman's  rights?"  asked  Mrs.  Farrell, 
trailing  a  plume  of  fern  through  the  air. 

"Oh,  I'm  woman's  anything,"  said  Easton; 
"anything  that  women  really  want;  but  rights  are 
a  subject  that  they  don't  seem  very  certain  of, 
themselves." 

"Yes,"  sighed  Mrs.  Farrell,  "that's  the  trouble 
with  women;  from  day  to  day,  and  from  dress  to 
dress,  they  don't  really  know  what  they  want. 
There's  Rachel  Woodward;  she  has  this  decided 
talent,  but  she  don't  seem  to  want  decidedly  to  use 
it,  as  a  man  would.  I'm  not  even  sure  that  if  all 
the  world  were  propitious  I  should  open  a  milliner 
shop.  But  I  think  I  should.  If  I  ever  do,  Mr. 
Easton,  and  you  marry  one  of  my  'prentices,  I 
want  you  to  promise  that  you'll  let  her  buy  her 
bonnets  of  me.  That  isn't  asking  a  great  deal,  is 
it?"  She  was  scrutinizing  a  crest  of  maidenhair 
and  making  it  tilt  on  its  stem,  as  if  in  doubt  just 
where  to  put  it  in  the  cluster,  and  she  began  softly 
and  as  if  unconsciously,  to  whistle  in  alow,  delicious 
note.  Then  she  suddenly  stopped,  made  a  little 
prim  mouth,  threw  up  her  eyebrows,  and  said: 
' '  Why,  excuse  me,  excuse  me !  What  awful  behavior 
in  company!" 

Easton  gave  himself  to  the  joy  of  being  played 
upon  by  her  charming  insolence,  with  a  glad  laugh, 
full  of  a  sort  of  happy  wonder;  but  she  seemed  not 
to  notice,  while  she  went  on  gravely  adding  spray 
to  spray. 

73 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"What  are  you  making  all  those  for?'*  he  asked, 
when  he  was  willing  to  change  the  delight  of  her 
silence  for  the  delight  of  her  speech. 

"I  don't  know— for  Mrs.  Gilbert,  I  think.  She's 
so  much  of  an  invalid  that  she  can't  come  after 
things  that  she  doesn't  want,  as  the  rest  of  us  can, 
and  so  we're  always  carrying  them  to  her.  I  often 
wonder  how  she  gets  rid  of  them.  You  never  see 
them  next  day.  Isn't  it  strange?"  asked  Mrs. 
Farrell,  with  a  serious  face;  and  abruptly,  "What 
makes  you  come  to  the  country  if  you  don't  know 
anything  about  it?" 

"Well,  I  take  an  ignorant  pleasure  in  it.  On  this 
occasion  I  came  because  I  thought  Gilbert  would 
like  it." 

"Ah,  Damon  and  Pythias!  Do  New  York  gen 
tlemen  commonly  desert  their  business  at  the  beck 
of  their  men  friends  in  that  way  ?  We  have  six  Bos 
ton  husbands  belonging  to  the  wives  of  Woodward 
farm,  and  they  can't  leave  their  business  one 
workday  in  the  week." 

"But  I'm  not  a  business  man.  I'm  no  more  use 
less  here  than  in  New  York." 

Mrs.  Farrell  looked  interested,  and  Easton  went 
on.  "I  went  into  the  army  too  young  to  have  a 
profession,  and  came  out  of  it  too  old — or  some 
thing — to  study  one.  So  I  live  upon  a  little  money 
left  me  by  a  better  man." 

"And  you  don't  actually  do  anything?" 

1 '  I  can't  quite  say  that.  I  try  not  to  keep  other 
people  from  working;  that's  something;  and  I 
have  my  little  pursuits." 

74 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"But  you  have  no  business  occupation?" 

"No." 

"Really!  And  your  friend,  Pythias — is  he  a 
gentleman  of  elegant  leisure,  too?" 

"He's  a  lawyer,  if  you  mean  Gilbert." 

"Yes,  I  mean  Gilbert,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  ab 
stractedly.  "He  didn't  go  in  too  young,  then?'* 

"He's  a  little  older  than  I." 

'"I  said  an  older  soldier,  not  a  better,'"  quoted 
Mrs.  Farrell.  "Is  he — why,  excuse  me!  I  seem  to 
be  actually  pumping  you." 

"I  hope  you'll  believe  that  I'm  not  in  the 
habit  of  exploiting  myself  and  my  affairs,"  said 
Easton. 

But  Mrs.  Farrell  did  not  seem  to  heed  what  he 
said.  She  looked  him  steadily  in  the  face  with  her 
bewildering  eyes,  and  asked,  "Why  doesn't  he  live 
on  some  better  man's  money,  too?"  and  laughed 
to  see  his  shame  painted  in  his  face. 

"I  have  been  so  silly  as  to  talk  of  my  own  busi 
ness,  and  you've  punished  me  as  I  deserved;  but 
I  don't  think  I'll  enter  into  my  friend's  concerns, 
even  for  the  honor  of  making  you  laugh,"  he 
answered,  hotly. 

"Then  you  don't  like  being  laughed  at?"  she 
gravely  questioned.  Easton  rose  to  his  feet. 
' '  What !  Are  you  actually  going  away  from  me  ?  I 
beg  you  to  forgive  me — I  do  indeed!  I  really 
meant  nothing.  You  haven't  said  a  word  that  I 
don't  respect  you  for.  I  thought  you  wouldn't 
mind  it.  Tell  me  how  I  shall  treat  you.  It's  only 
for  a  week;  I  should  be  so  sorry  to  be  enemies  with 

75 


MRS.  FARRELL 

you  while  you  stay.  What  shall  I  do  to  make 
peace?  What  shall  I  say?" 

She  rose  quickly,  and  stretched  her  hand  ap- 
pealingly  toward  him.  A  mastering  impulse  of 
tenderness  filled  his  heart  at  her  words  of  regret. 
Before  he  knew,  he  had  pressed  her  hand  in  a  quick 
kiss  against  his  lips,  and  then  stood  holding  it  fast, 
awestruck  at  what  he  had  done. 

"Oh!  What  are  you  doing?"  cried  Mrs.  Farrell, 
starting  away  from  him  in  a  panic.  "Don't;  you 
mustn't!  Mr.  Easton!  Oh  dear,  there  '11  be  some 
body  coming  in  a  moment!"  She  wrung  her  hand 
loose  and,  casting  one  look  of  fear,  wonder,  and 
reproach  upon  him,  turned  and  walked  sadly  away. 
He  followed  her  as  silently,  and  without  a  word  they 
mounted  the  slope  of  the  hollow,  and  passed  through 
the  brakes  and  over  the  walls,  which  she  mounted 
now  without  his  help.  When  they  came  to  the  last, 
which  divided  the  wood  from  the  open  meadow,  she 
turned  her  aggrieved  face  upon  him  again  and  said, 
meekly:  "I  shall  have  to  beg  you  to  go  back  and 
get  me  those  ferns  we  left  there  in  the  hollow.  It 
won't  do  to  go  home  without  anything.  I'll  wait 
here;"  and  she  sat  down  upon  the  low  broken  wall, 
and  averted  her  face  from  him  again.  He  went 
back  as  he  was  bidden,  and  with  a  little  search 
found  the  place,  the  sight  of  which  somehow  sent  a 
shiver  through  him  as  if  it  were  haunted,  and, 
gathering  up  the  clusters  of  ferns,  returned  with 
them  to  her.  He  tried  to  say  something,  but  could 
not.  She  took  some  of  them,  and  began  to  talk  in  a 
curiously  animated  way,  looking  at  them  and  com- 


MRS.  FARRELL 

paring  them;  and  then,  not  far  off,  he  saw  Gilbert 
and  the  young  girls  approaching.  Mrs.  Farrell 
sprang  down  from  the  wall  and  hurried  to  meet 
them.  They  were  covered  with  brakes  and  ferns 
and  a  gay  laughing  and  talking  broke  forth  among 
the  women.  Mrs.  Farrell  attached  Gilbert  to  her 
for  the  walk  home ;  and  it  fell  to  Easton  to  accom 
pany  the  two  young  girls.  When  he  left  them  they 
said  he  was  very  nice-looking,  and  he  was  very  hard 
to  get  along  with,  much  harder  than  Mr.  Gilbert, 
who  always  kept  saying  something  to  make  you 
laugh.  They  did  not  know  whether  Mr.  Easton 
was  really  stupid  or  not;  he  did  not  look  stupid, 
and  it  was  quite  delightful  to  have  a  man  so  bashful. 

In  the  meantime  he  had  parted  in  a  blank,  opaque 
sort  of  way  from  Mrs.  Farrell,  with  whom  he  left 
Gilbert,  and  was  walking  moodily  homeward  over 
that  road  where  he  had  met  her  in  the  morning. 
He  found  the  hotel  intolerable,  and  after  a  cup  of  its 
Japan  tea,  and  a  glance  at  its  hot  biscuit,  its  cold 
slices  of  corned  beef,  its  little  blocks  and  wedges  of 
cheese,  its  small  satellite  dishes  of  prunes  and  pre 
serves,  and  its  twenty-five  Sunday  evening  toi 
lettes,  he  went  out  again,  and  walked  far  and  long 
in  a  direction  that  he  knew  nothing  of  except  that 
it  was  away  from  where  he  had  spent  the  day.  His 
heart  was  still  thickly  beating  in  his  ears  when  he 
got  back  and  found  Gilbert  alone  on  the  piazza. 

" Hello!"  said  Gilbert.  "Developing  into  a 
pedestrian?  Why  did  you  go  away  so  soon?  I 
think  the  lovely  Farrell  missed  you.  She  was  quite 
pensive  and  distraite  at  first;  though  I  must  own 

77 


MRS.  FARRELL 

she  cheered  up  and  collected  herself  after  a  while. 
She  looked  extremely  attractive  in  her  melancholy." 

Easton  sat  down  in  the  next  chair  without 
answering,  and,  drawing  a  match  along  the  bottom 
of  the  seat,  lighted  his  cigar.  After  a  few  whiffs  he 
took  it  from  his  lips  and  held  it  till  it  went  out. 

Gilbert  went  on  with  a  quick  laugh,  "She's  a 
most  amusing  creature!" 

"I  don't  understand  what  you  mean  by  that," 
said  Easton,  turning  his  face  halfway  toward  his 
friend,  in  a  fashion  he  had. 

"Well,  it's  hard  to  say.  I  suppose  because  she's 
so  deep  and  so  transparent.  She  does  everything 
for  an  effect,  and  she  isn't  at  peace  with  herself  for 
a  moment." 

"I  suppose  we  all  do  that,"  commented  Easton. 

"Yes,  but  not  with  her  motive." 

"What  is  her  motive?" 

"That's  not  so  easy  to  explain.  It's  a  pity  you 
haven't  the  data  for  comprehending  her,  Easton, 
and  enjoying  her  character;  you  don't  know  other 
women,  and  you  can't  see  how  sublimely  perfect 
Mrs.  Farrell  is  in  her  way.  She's  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  women  I  ever  saw;  one  of  the  brightest, 
the  most  amiable.  But  I  should  be  sorry  to  marry 
her;  I  shouldn't  want  my  wife  so  amiable — to 
everybody.  She  isn't  meant  for  the  domesticities. 
There's  no  harm  in  her;  she  simply  wants  excite 
ment,  luxury,  applause,  all  in  one,  all  the  time.  By 
Jove !  the  man  that  gets  her  will  wish  she  was  his 
widow,  and  so  will  she,  as  soon  as  she  has  him. 
She's  an  inspired  flirt;  and  I  don't  mean  that  she's 


MRS.  FARRELL 

like  young  girls  who  can't  help  their  innocent 
coquetries  with  a  man  or  two;  but  her  flirtatious- 
ness  is  vast  enough  for  the  whole  world,  and 
enduring  enough  for  all  time.  As  long  as  she  lives 
she'll  be  wanting  to  try  her  power  upon  some  one; 
and  there  can't  be  any  game  so  high  or  so  low  that 
she  won't  fly  at  it.  What  a  life  that  would  be  for 
her  husband!" 

Easton  sat  still  while  Gilbert  spoke,  and  he  re 
mained  silent  when  he  ceased.  But  the  words  had 
given  him  a  supreme  satisfaction;  they  had 
lifted  a  load  from  his  heart;  they  had  made  the 
way  clear  and  straight.  He  was  infinitely  far  from 
resenting  what  left  her,  as  concerned  Gilbert  at 
least,  so  solely  to  his  love  and  worship.  With  his 
passion  their  reason  or  unreason  had  not  a  feather's 
weight. 

"  Shall  you  stay  any  longer  than  the  end  of  the 
fortnight?"  he  asked  at  last. 

"No,"  said  Gilbert,  who  was  used  to  Easton's 
way  of  suddenly  turning  from  the  matter  of  their 
talk,  and  coming  as  suddenly  back  to  it  some  other 
time;  "I  don't  think  I  could  stand  it  longer." 

Easton  made  a  motion  to  replace  his  cigar  in  his 
lips,  then  looked  at  it  with  sudden  disgust  and  flung 
it  over  the  rail.  His  mind  ran  off  in  wild  reverie 
upon  the  kiss,  which  he  now  feigned  again  and 
again  upon  her  hand.  His  eccentric  life  and  his 
peculiar  temperament  had  kept  him  so  unlike  other 
young  men  that  he  had  no  trouble  for  the  violated 
conventionality;  it  could  only  be  a  question  of 
right  or  wrong  with  him;  he  believed  that  he  had 

79 


MRS.  FARRELL 

taken  an  unfair  advantage  of  her  attempt  at  repara 
tion,  but  the  fire  that  burned  in  his  heart  seemed  to 
purge  it  of  whatever  wrong  there  was  in  his  vio 
lence.  He  was  reclining  there  near  her  on  the  rock 
under  the  hovering  shade,  with  the  bracken  in  light 
undulation  all  around  above  their  heads,  and  the 
summer  at  its  sweetest  in  the  air  and  earth;  then 
he  despaired  to  think  that  the  night  must  pass 
before  he  could  see  her  again,  that  life  itself  might 
pass  and  no  such  moment  come  again.  His  reverie 
broke  in  a  long,  deep  sigh. 

Gilbert  gave  a  sudden  laugh.  "Why,  I  believe, 
Easton,  you  are  hit!  You  had  forgotten  I  was 
here,"  he  continued,  as  Easton  looked  round  in  a 
stupefied  way.  "Well,  I'll  leave  you  to  your 
raptures." 

"I'm  going  to  bed,  too,"  said  Easton.  "I'm 
tired  to  death;"  and  he  rose  from  his  chair  with  a 
leaden  sense  of  fatigue  in  every  fiber. 

Their  rooms  opened  into  each  other,  and  Easton 
was  abed  when  Gilbert  rapped  on  the  dividing 
door.  "Come  in,"  he  called. 

Gilbert  came  into  the  room,  which  the  bright 
moon  would  have  made  uncomfortable  for  any  but 
a  lover.  "Look  here,  old  fellow,"  he  said,  bending 
over  his  friend,  with  one  arm  stretched  along  the 
headboard,  "you  didn't  think  to-day,  from  any 
thing  my  sister-in-law  said,  that  I'd  been  making 
light  of  you,  did  you?" 

"What  did  she  say?" 

"Oh,  about  Rogers,  you  know." 

"Certainly  not." 

80 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"Then  it  isn't  necessary  to  say  I  hadn't?" 

"Oh  no,"  said  Easton,  turning  his  head  im 
patiently.  "I  never  thought  of  it  again."  Gilbert's 
anxious  loyalty  annoyed  him,  for  since  they  had 
bidden  each  other  good  night  the  consciousness 
that  he  had,  however  against  his  will,  suffered  some 
thing  to  be  extorted  from  him  that  might  be  con 
strued  as  derogation  of  his  friend  had  troubled  him, 
but  he  had  rather  arrogantly  dismissed  the  thought 
as  unworthy  of  their  friendship.  Besides,  without 
placing  himself  in  a  false  light  he  could  not  speak  of 
it,  and  it  was  vexatious  to  be  reminded  of  it  by 
Gilbert's  scruples. 

"Then  it's  all  right?"  asked  Gilbert. 

"Why,  certainly!"  said  Easton,  impatiently. 

Gilbert  slowly  withdrew  his  arm  from  where  it 
lay,  and  stood  a  moment  in  hesitation;  then  he 
said,  "Good  night,"  and  went  into  his  own  room. 

Easton  felt  the  vague  disappointment  in  his 
manner,  but  was  helpless  to  make  the  reparation 
to  which  his  heart  urged  him.  He  could  not  expose 
Mrs.  Farrell's  part  in  what  had  been  said  to  his 
friend's  interpretation;  the  wrong  done  was  one  of 

those  things  which  must  be  lived  down. 
6 


Chapter  VI 

IT  was  much  later  than  his  wonted  hour  when 
Easton  woke  next  morning,  and  found  a  scrap 
of  paper  stuck  between  the  mirror  and  its 
frame,  on  which  Gilbert  had  written :  ' '  Off  for  the 
trout  brooks.  See  you  at  dinner."  This  gave  him 
a  moment's  pause,  and  then  he  went  on  dressing. 
He  had  a  lover's  single  purpose  of  seeing  her  he 
loved,  and  a  lover's  insensibility  to  questions  of 
ways  and  means;  and  after  breakfast  he  walked 
away  toward  the  farm,  thinking  what  he  should 
say  and  do  when  he  met  Mrs.  Farrell. 

At  Woodward  farm  there  was  no  organization  for 
the  reception  of  callers  upon  the  guests.  There  was 
no  bell,  and  there  would  have  been  no  one  to  answer 
it  if  there  was  a  bell.  But  in  a  house  where  there 
was  so  much  leisure  and  so  much  curiosity,  this  was 
ordinarily  a  small  deprivation.  Some  of  the  ladies 
were  always  looking  out,  and  if  they  saw  any  of 
their  friends  coming  they  ran  forth  to  meet  them 
with  a  great  deal  of  pleasant  twitter,  having  shouted 
a  voluble  welcome  to  them  from  the  time  they  came 
in  sight.  If  it  was  some  one  whom  the  lookers-out 
recognized  as  the  friend  of  another  lady,  they  went 
to  alarm  her  in  ample  season,  and  by  the  time  the 
visitor  ascended  the  piazza  steps  the  lady  was  at 

82 


MRS.   FARRELL 

the  door.  Besides,  some  one  or  other  was  always 
sitting  about  outdoors,  and  if  unknown  visitors 
approached,  it  was  a  grateful  little  excitement  to 
ask  them,  when  they  had  vainly  inspected  the  door 
frame  for  a  bell,  if  one  could  call  her  whom  they 
wished  to  see. 

But  when  Mr.  Easton  was  descried  approaching, 
people  were  quite  undecided  what  to  do,  and  he  was 
on  the  piazza,  before  he  had  himself  perceived  that 
he  had  something  to  do  besides  walking  up  to  Mrs. 
Farrell  and  telling  her  that  he  loved  her.  It  ap 
peared  to  him  impossible  that  she  should  not  be 
there  to  receive  him;  he  had  been  so  rapt  in  his 
meditation  upon  her  that  he  had  not  believed  but 
he  must  meet  her  as  soon  as  he  reached  the  door; 
and  now  she  was  not  there!  Several  heads  were 
decently  taken  in  from  the  upper  windows,  and  the 
broad  piazza  was  empty  but  for  the  two  young 
ladies  whom  he  had  walked  home  with  yesterday; 
they  sat  half  in  the  sunlight  at  the  corner,  and  one 
was  looking  down  upon  the  work  in  her  hand,  and 
the  other  looking  down  upon  the  book  she  was 
reading  aloud,  and  he  fancied  himself  unperceived 
by  them.  A  mighty  disappointment  fell  upon  him ; 
he  had  stormed  the  fortress,  to  find  it  empty  and 
equipped  with  Quaker  guns.  As  he  stood  there 
helpless,  the  young  girl  who  was  reading  discreetly 
chanced  to  look  round,  and  to  her  evident  great 
surprise  discovered  him.  She  gave  him  a  friendly 
little  nod,  and  as  he  came  toward  her  she  rose  with 
a  pretty  air  and  offered  her  hand,  and  the  other  did 
the  same.  They  talked  excitedly  for  a  minute  or 

83 


MRS.  FARRELL 

two,  and  then  the  conversation  began  to  flag,  and 
Easton  uneasily  shifted  his  attitude.  No  doubt 
they  would  have  liked  to  keep  him  with  them  for  a 
little  while,  but  perhaps  they  did  not  know  how,  or 
thought  they  ought  to  give  him  a  chance  to  get 
away  if  he  wanted;  or  perhaps  she  who  spoke  was 
quite  sincere  in  asking,  with  a  bright  smile,  "Did 
you  want  to  see  Mrs." —  his  heart  began  to  beat  in 
his  ears— "Gilbert?" 

"Yes,"  said  Easton,  stupidly. 

"I  will  go  and  tell  her,"  said  the  young  girl, 
laying  her  book  down  open,  and  lightly  turning 
away. 

"Thanks — I'm  very  sorry  to  trouble  you,"  said 
Easton;  and  neither  he  nor  she  with  whom  he  was 
left  contrived  to  speak  one  word  more  while  the 
other  was  gone.  When  she  came  back  she  said, 
with  some  trepidation:  "Mrs.  Gilbert  is  very,  very 
sorry.  She  has  one  of  her  bad  headaches,  and  she 
can't  see  any  one.  She's  so  sorry  to  miss  your  call." 

"Oh,  no  matter — no  matter,"  answered  Easton. 
"I'm  sorry  she's  not  well;  please  give  her  my — 
please  say  I  was  sorry.  Good  morning!"  he  added, 
abruptly,  and  cast  a  wistful,  despairing  look  at  the 
front  of  the  house,  and  could  not  go.  "  Is — is  Mrs. 
Farrell  at  home?"  he  asked,  desperately. 

The  young  girl  cruelly  smiled,  and  her  companion 
cruelly  cast  down  her  eyes,  and  then  they  both 
blushed. 

"No,"  said  the  first,  "she  isn't  at  home.  She 
said  she  was  going  with  Miss  Rachel  to  help  pick 
peas." 

§4 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"Oh!"  was  all  that  Easton  could  say;  and  as  he 
turned  away  the  girls  said  it  was  a  perfect  shame, 
and  they  were  rude  girls,  too  flat  for  anything. 

Easton  forgot  them  both,  and  walked  back  toward 
his  hotel.  On  the  way  down  the  slope  from  the 
house  he  looked  in  the  direction  of  the  vegetable 
garden,  and  faltered.  Mrs.  Farrell's  voice  floated 
over  to  him  in  a  gay  laugh  from  the  ranks  of  the 
pea  vines,  and  an  insane  longing  to  behold  her  filled 
him  to  the  throat.  But  he  could  not  go  and  tell 
her  he  loved  her,  there  among  the  pea  pods;  even 
he  felt  that.  He  twisted  his  mustache  into  the 
corner  of  his  mouth,  beat  the  ground  with  his  stick, 
and  hurried  away,  hurt,  tormented,  but  not  at  all 
daunted  or  moved  from  his  mind  to  have  speech 
with  her  as  soon  as  ever  he  could. 

When  she  had  finished  her  part  of  the  work, 
which  was  to  gather  peas  with  fitful  intensity  and 
then  to  talk  for  long  intervals  to  Rachel's  taciturn 
perseverance,  she  emptied  her  small  harvest  into 
the  basket  that  one  of  the  Woodward  boys  carried, 
and  walked  picturesquely  back  to  the  house  under 
her  broad  hat,  which  dropped  its  shade  just  across 
her  lips  like  a  grace  veil,  and  left  her  dark  eyes  to 
glow,  starlike,  from  its  depths.  In  this  becoming 
effect  she  sat  down  on  the  kitchen  threshold,  with 
the  wide  doors  open  round  her,  and  took  some  of 
the  peas  into  her  lap  and  shelled  them  with  a  lazy 
ease,  moving  her  arms  from  the  elbows  resting  on 
her  knees,  and  managing  chiefly  with  her  flexile 
wrists,  and  went  on  talking  with  Rachel  of  a  picnic 
excursion  to  the  mountain  which  she  wished  to 

85 


MRS.   FARRELL 

plan.  "We  shall  not  want  any  one  along  but  the 
youngest  Miss  Jewett  and  Jenny  Alden  and  Ben, 
and  we  can  have  a  splendid  time.  It's  just  the 
right  season,  now.  Come,  Mrs.  Woodward,"  she 
called  into  the  kitchen,  "are  you  going  to  let 
me  go?" 

"You  mostly  do  what  you  like,  Mrs.  Farrell," 
answered  Mrs.  Woodward's  voice,  "and  the  only 
way  I  get  any  obedience  out  of  you  is  to  forbid  you 
to  do  what  you  don't  like.  Yes,  go.  All  I  ask  is 
that  you  don't  take  me." 

"Now,  then,  Miss  Prim,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell  to 
Rachel,  "you  see  you're  commanded  to  go.  What 
had  we  better  wear?" 

"Oh,  wear  all  your  worst  things,"  said  Mrs. 
Woodward. 

"Yes,  but  I'm  one  of  those  poor  people  who  can't 
afford  to  have  any  but  best  things.  I'm  going  to 
get  you  to  lend  me  some  of  your  worst,  Mrs.  Wood 
ward,  and  I'm  going  to  borrow  Ben's  hat.  Will  you 
lend  it  to  me,  Ben? "  she  tenderly  asked  of  the  grave 
young  felllw  who  stood  near,  and  who  had  to  shift 
himself  from  one  foot  to  the  other  and  turn  his 
face  away  before  he  could  assent.  She  laughed  at 
his  trepidation,  as  if  she  knew  the  reason  of  it.  But 
by  the  time  he  could  confront  Mrs.  Farrell  again, 
she  apparently  did  not  care  for  his  answer.  Her 
eyes  were  fixed  upon  the  figure  of  Gilbert  as  he 
came  up  the  road  toward  the  house.  He  came  in 
sight  suddenly,  as  if  he  had  climbed  the  wall  from 
one  of  the  birch-bordered  meadows.  He  was  better 
worth  looking  at  than  Ben  Woodward,  being  very 

86 


MRS.   FARRELL 

brave  in  his  high  boots  and  his  straw  hat,  with  his 
bundled  rod  and  his  trout  basket,  a  strong,  sinewy 
shape,  and  a  face  very  handsome  in  its  fashion. 
As  he  drew  nearer,  he  turned  aside  and  slanted  his 
course  toward  the  door  where  Mrs.  Farrell  sat. 
Before  he  came  up  to  her  place  Rachel  had  silently 
vanished  within,  and  Mrs.  Farrell  sat  there  alone. 

"Good  morning,"  he  called  out,  taking  off  his 
hat. 

"Good  morning,"  returned  Mrs.  Farrell,  without 
changing  her  posture.  "Don't  you  want  to  stop 
and  help  shell  peas?" 

Either  their  acquaintance  had  prospered  rapidly 
after  Easton  had  left  them  together  the  afternoon 
before,  or  else  this  was  Mrs.  Farrell's  indifference 
to  social  preliminaries. 

"No,  thanks,"  said  Gilbert,  tranquilly,  wiping 
his  forehead  with  his  handkerchief.  ' '  My  domestic 
gifts  are  small.  But  I  was  thinking,  as  I  came 
along,  that  I  would  give  you  people  my  trout." 

"Really?    How  very  handsome  of  you!" 

"Yes,  there's  nothing  mean  about  me.  They 
sometimes  object  to  cooking  them  at  the  hotel,  and 
I  don't  quite  like  to  throw  them  away." 

' '  Why,  this  is  true  charity !  If  I'm  to  accept  them 
in  the  name  of  the  farm,  I  must  see  them  first." 

Gilbert  took  off  his  basket  and  laid  it  at  her  feet ; 
she  opened  it  and  cried  out,  "What  beauties! 
Like  flowers !  But " — she  gave  ever  so  little  a  pretty 
grimace — "not  exactly  the  same  perfume!" 

"No,"  said  he,  "they  can't  very  well  help  that. 
But  they  improve  with  frying." 

87 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"That's  true,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell.  "Well,  we'll 
take  them.  And  you  must  get  Mrs.  Gilbert  to  ask 
you  to  supper.  I  can't  do  it." 

"No,"  answered  Gilbert,  "my  generosity  shall 
be  unblemished.  I  never  eat  the  trout  I've  taken, 
any  more.  Easton's  religion  has  had  that  much 
effect  upon  me." 

1 '  Easton's  religion  ? ' ' 

"Yes;  he  thinks  it's  atrocious  to  kill  anything 
for  the  pleasure  of  it." 

"How  very  droll!  And  you're  able  to  behave  so 
nobly  with  your  fish  because  you  couldn't  get  them 
cooked,  and  wouldn't  eat  them  if  you  could!" 
Gilbert  had  been  standing  beside  the  pile  of  maple 
firewood  which  flanked  the  kitchen  door  and  sent 
up  a  pleasant  odor  in  the  sun;  Mrs.  Farrell  said, 
"Sit  down,"  and  he  sat  down  on  a  broad  block  used 
for  splitting  kindling.  '  *  I  wonder  what  Mr.  Easton 
would  have  had  to  say  to  some  of  the  apostles  on 
the  subject  of  fishing." 

"That's  what  I  asked  him  once;  but  he  says  they 
didn't  fish  for  fun." 

"He  distinguishes!  Well,  but  what  about  the 
clergymen  who  make  it  their  diversion,  and  then 
boast  about  their  prowess  in  books?" 

"Ask  Easton  for  his  opinion.  I  can  assure  you 
it's  worth  hearing — if  you  like  contempt  red  hot." 

"I  don't  believe  I  do!  I'd  rather  ask  you.  Is 
that  his  whole  creed,  anti-trouting  ? " 

"No;  hardly.  He  has  a  kindness  for  most  of  the 
human  race  as  well  as  the  lower  animals.  The  only 
creature  he  really  hates  is  the  horse,"  said  Gilbert, 

88 


MRS.   FARRELL 

with  a  laugh  as  of  recollected  mirth;  and  in  fact 
Easton  had  been  known  in  his  army  days  for  his 
antipathy  to  his  chargers.  He  always  got  full  serv 
ice  out  of  them  by  sheer  force  of  will;  but  he  never 
liked  them,  and  never  professed  to  understand 
them;  the  horse,  he  contended,  was  unfitted  for  a 
gentleman's  society  by  the  blackguard  company  he 
habitually  kept.  ''But  I  don't  think  he'd  do  even 
a  horse  a  wanton  injury,"  concluded  Gilbert. 

"Yes?"  said  Mrs.  Farrell.  "And  the  rest  of  his 
opinions?" 

"Why,  there  are  very  few  things  that  Easton 
hadn't  an  opinion  upon.  It's  rather  odd,  don't  you 
think,  to  find  a  man  in  our  age  and  country  really 
caring  enough  for  matters  in  general  to  make  up 
his  mind  about  them  ? " 

"Very,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  twisting  her  slim  shape 
round  to  take  a  handful  of  peas  out  of  the  basket 
behind  her  and  putting  them  into  her  lap.  "Go 
on." 

"That  was  all  I  had  to  say,"  returned  Gilbert, 
with  a  mocking  light  in  his  eyes. 

' '  Oh,  how  can  you  be  so  cruel  ? — when  I  had  just 
got  ready  to  listen!  Do  go  on!" 

"Why,  I  was  thinking—"  began  Gilbert. 

"Yes,  yes!"  eagerly  prompted  Mrs.  Farrell, 
"thinking  (really  thinking!  Of  course  you  can't 
have  been  doing  it  long!) — thinking — " 

"That  it  was  a  very  inconvenient  practice  to 
inquire  into  the  right  and  wrong  of  many  things," 
proceeded  Gilbert,  in  solid  indifference  to  her  light 
impertinences;  whereupon  she  seemed  to  suffer 

89 


MRS.  FARRELL 

some  evanescent  confusion.  "It  gives  you  no  sort 
of  moral  leeway.  Suppose  you  want  to  do  some 
thing — anything — out  of  the  ordinary  line  of  things 
that  you  do  or  don't  do;  well,  if  you  haven't  con 
sidered  too  impertinently  of  right  and  wrong  in 
general,  you  do  it  without  once  thinking  whether 
you  ought  or  oughtn't,  and  there  you  are  on  the 
safe  side,  anyway." 

"Oh,  what  a  beautiful  philosophy!"  moaned  Mrs. 
Farrell,  clasping  her  hands  together  without  moving 
her  elbows  from  their  careless  pose.  She  rested  her 
cheek  a  moment  on  her  folded  hands;  then  she 
asked  with  a  voice  full  of  mock  emotion,  "Do  you 
think  it  would  do  for  Woman,  Mr.  Gilbert?  It 
seems  just  made  for  her!" 

"I  hadn't  thought  about  Woman,"  said  Gilbert; 
"that's  a  matter  still  to  be  considered.  You  must 
give  me  time." 

"Oh  yes,  we  will  be  patient — patient!"  and  Mrs. 
Farrell  began  to  shell  the  peas  with  an  air  of 
tragical  endurance.  "Take  any  length  of  time  you 
wish.  But  in  the  meanwhile,  can't  you  state  the 
Eastonian  principle  more  fully?" 

"Only  by  saying  that  it's  the  opposite  of  the 
system  you  admire  and  covet.  Easton  isn't  a 
man  to  formulate  his  ideas  very  freely.  You're 
astounded  every  now  and  then  by  some  extraor 
dinary  piece  of  apparently  quite  uncalled-for  up 
rightness,  and  then  you  find  that  he  had  long 
contemplated  some  such  exigency,  and  had  his  con 
science  in  perfect  training." 

"How  very  droll!"  said  Mrs.  Farrell.  Then  she 
90 


MRS.  FARRELL 

said,  looking  at  him  through  her  eyelashes,  "It's 
quite  touching  to  see  such  attached  friends.'* 

Gilbert  stirred  uneasily  on  his  block,  and  an 
swered,  "It's  a  great  honor  to  form  part  of  a  spec 
tacle  affecting  to  you,  Mrs.  Farrell — if  you  mean 
Easton  and  me." 

"Yes,  I  do.  Don't  scoff  at  my  weak  impressi 
bility.  You  must  see  that  it's  a  thing  calculated 
to  rouse  a  woman's  curiosity.  You  seem  so  very 
different!" 

"Men  and  women  are  very  different,  in  some 
respects,"  calmly  responded  Gilbert,  "but  there 
have  been  quite  strong  attachments  between  them." 

"True,"  rejoined  Mrs.  Farrell  with  burlesque 
though tfulness.  "But  in  this  case  they're  both 


men." 


"Nothing  escapes  you,  Mrs.  Farrell,"  said  Gil 
bert,  bowing  his  head. 

"You  praise  me  more  than  I  deserve.  I  didn't 
take  all  your  meaning.  One  of  you  is  so  mightily, 
so  heroically  manly,  that  the  other  necessarily 
womanizes  in  comparison.  Isn't  that  it?  But 
which  is  which?" 

"Modesty  forbids  me  to  claim  either  transcendent 
distinction." 

"Oh,  I  know!  Mr.  Easton  is  your  ideal  man. 
But  I  should  want  my  ideal  man  to  do  something 
in  the  world,  to  devote  himself  to  some  one  great 
object.  That's  what  I  should  do,  if  I  were  a  man." 

'  *  Of  course.  How  do  you  know  Easton  doesn't  ? ' ' 
'I  merely  have  his  word  for  it." 

Gilbert    looked    surprised    and    perplexed.      At 


MRS.  FARRELL 

length  he  said,  rather  dryly:  "I  congratulate  you 
on  getting  Easton  to  talk  about  himself.  Not  many 
people  have  succeeded." 

"Oh,  is  he  so  reticent?"  asked  Mrs.  Farrell.  "I 
didn't  find  him  so.  He  was  quite  free  in  mentioning 
his  little  pursuits,  as  he  called  it." 

' '  His  book ! ' '  cried  Gilbert.  ' '  Did  he  talk  to  you 
about  that,  already?" 

"Why,  it  seems  that  you  don't  know  your  friend 
very  well,  after  all!"  mocked  Mrs.  Farrell  with  a 
laugh  of  triumph.  "Why  shouldn't  he  talk  to  me 
about  his  book?  He  knew  I  would  be  interested  in 
the  subject;  any  woman  would." 

"Upon  my  word,  I  don't  see  what  should  particu 
larly  interest  you  in  a  history  of  heroism." 

Mrs.  Farrell  celebrated  her  fresh  advantage  with 
another  laugh.  "Why  not?"  she  asked,  taking 
some  of  the  peas  up  in  her  hand  and  letting  them 
drop  through  her  fingers.  "We're  all  heroes  till 
we've  been  tried,  and  I  haven't  been  tried.  He's 
going  to  put  me  into  it.  Do  tell  me  his  plan  in 
writing  it,"  she  entreated. 

"Look  here,  Mrs.  Farrell,"  said  Gilbert,  bending 
forward  and  looking  keenly  at  her,  "do  you  mean 
to  tell  me  that  Easton  has  actually  been  talking  to 
you  about  his  book,  which  I  now  perceive  I  men 
tioned  first?" 

"Look  here,  Mr.  Gilbert,"  said  she,  with  an  au 
daciously  charming  caricature  of  his  attitude  and 
manner, ' '  do  you  mean  to  tell  me  that  you  doubt  my 
word?" 

"Well,"  said  Gilbert,  with  a  laugh,  "I  own  my- 
92 


MRS.  FARRELL 

self  beaten.  Did  you  ever  hear  of  Miss  Lillian — I 
forget  her  name — the  St.  Louis  lawyeress?  Why 
don't  you  study  our  profession?  At  a  cross-ex 
amination  no  witness  could  resist  you,  if  I  may 
judge  from  my  own  experience  in  helplessly  blab 
bing  what  you  never  would  have  known  otherwise. 
Come,  Mrs.  Farrell,  you  have  triumphed  so  mag 
nificently  that  you  can  afford  to  be  frank;  own, 
now,  that  all  you  know  of  Easton's  book  is  what 
I've  told." 

He  rose  and  stood  looking  down  admiringly  upon 
her  uplifted  face. 

"No,"  she  answered,  "I  shall  not  do  that,  Colonel 
— I  beg  your  pardon;  I  mean  Major — Gilbert. 
Mr.  Easton's  the  colonel,"  she  added,  parenthet 
ically.  "What  was  the  reason,"  she  continued 
with  well-studied  innocence,  "that  he  came  out  a 
colonel  and  you  came  out  only  a  major,  when  you 
had  so  much  the  advantage  of  him  at  first?" 

Gilbert's  face  had  hardened  in  the  lines  of  a 
smile,  and  it  kept  the  shape  of  a  smile  while  all 
mirth  died  out  of  it,  and  he  stared  into  the  eyes  of 
Mrs.  Farrell,  from  which  a  sudden  panic  looked. 

"Oh,  dear  me!"  she  said,  naturally.  "Don't— 
don't  mind.  I  didn't  mean  to  do  anything.  What 
have  I  done?  Oh,  I  wish — don't  answer,  please!" 
she  implored. 

But  Gilbert  gravely  responded,  "Because  he  was 
a  better  soldier.  I  am  sorry  if  I  alarm  you  by  the 
statement  of  the  fact.  Did  you  experience  any 
fright  when  Mr.  Easton  told  you?" 

"Oh,  he  never  told  me  that  he  was  braver  than 
93 


MRS.  FARRELL 

you.    I  don't  think  he  meant  to  talk  of  the  matter 
at  all." 

"I  can  believe  that,"  replied  Gilbert;  "neither 
do  I." 

Mrs.  Farrell  made  no  comment,  but,  taking  a 
fresh  handful  of  the  peas,  shelled  them,  with  such 
downcast  eyes  that  it  was  impossible  to  say  whether 
she  was  looking  at  Gilbert  through  her  lashes  or 
not.  Nor  could  one  tell  with  just  what  feeling  the 
corners  of  her  mouth  trembled,  but  his  sternness 
seemed  to  have  frightened  and  silenced  her.  Gil 
bert  breathed  quickly  as  he  regarded  her,  but  after 
waiting  awhile,  irresolute,  he  gave  a  short,  sardonic 
laugh  and  rose.  "Good  morning,"  he  said. 

"Good  morning,"  returned  Mrs.  Farrell,  wound- 
edly,  and  meekly  added,  "Thank  you  for  the  fish," 
to  which  he  bowed  his  reply  and  then  walked  round 
the  house. 

He  knocked  at  Mrs.  Gilbert's  door,  and  received 
from  her  own  lips  the  same  answer  which  had  al 
ready  turned  Easton  away,  and  so  went  quickly 
down  the  road  in  the  direction  of  the  hotel.  In  the 
meantime  Easton  had  not  been  able  to  turn  his 
steps  far  from  the  farm;  whichever  way  he  went 
they  tended  indirectly  thither,  and  at  last  he 
started  boldly  back.  At  the  moment  he  mounted 
the  front  piazza  steps  Mrs.  Farrell,  having  finished 
or  relinquished  her  domestic  task,  came  round  the 
gallery  from  the  side  of  the  house  and  met  him. 

"Good  morning,  Mr.  Easton,"  she  said,  pen 
sively.  "Did  you  want  to  see  Mrs.  Gilbert?  I 
believe  she  has  a  very  bad  headache  to-day." 

94 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"No,  I  didn't  want  to  see  Mrs.  Gilbert.  I  came 
to  see  you." 

"Oh!  Then  will  you  sit  down  here?"  she  asked, 
and  took  her  place  where  the  two  young  girls,  who 
were  now  away  in  the  fields,  had  been  sitting. 

"I  came  here  some  time  ago,"  said  Easton,  "and, 
not  finding  you,  I  tried  to  find  that  place  where  we 
got  the  ferns  yesterday." 

Mrs.  Farrell's  broad  hat-brim  thrust  uncom 
fortably  against  the  house  where  she  sat  on  the 
settle  beside  the  wall,  and  she  took  her  hat  off;  a 
mass  of  her  dark  hair  tumbled  in  a  rich  disorder  on 
her  back.  She  laid  her  hat  in  her  lap  and  waited. 

"I  went  there,"  pursued  Easton,  "because  I  had 
a  stupid  hope  that  the  place  might  inspire  me  with 
some  faint  shadow  of  reason,  of  excuse,  for — 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  interpreting  his  hesita 
tion  with  candid  reproachf ulness ;  "it  was  not 
fair,  and,  considering  all  things,  Mr.  Easton,  I  don't 
think  it  was  quite  kind." 

' '  Kind  ?  Kind ! ' '  cried  Easton,  with  an  inexpres 
sible  pang.  Then  after  a  moment's  thought  he 
added:  "No,  it  was  not  kind;  it  was  base,  tyran 
nical,  brutal!  It  was  worthy  of  a  savage!" 

Mrs.  Farrell  turned  her  face  slightly  away,  and 
if  she  had  been  acting  wounded  innocence  she  could 
hardly  have  known  it. 

"There  was  no  excuse  for  such  a  thing  but  the 
one  thing  in  the  world  which  it  is  least  like.  That 
is  its  excuse  to  me;  it  seems  an  insolent  affront  to 
suppose  that  it  can  atone  for  it  to  you." 

"I  suppose,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  demurely,  "that 
95 


MRS.   FARRELL 

women's  actions  are  often  misconstrued.  Indeed,  I 
ought  to  know  it  from  bitter  experience  in  my  own 
case.  I  ought  to  remember  that  men  seem  even 
eager  to  misinterpret  any  confidence  put  in  them; 
but  yesterday — I — I  couldn't!" 

There  was  a  sort  of  passionate  reproach,  a  tacit 
confession  that  she  had  singularly  trusted  him  to 
her  hurt,  in  the  close  of  this  speech,  which  went  to 
Easton's  heart.  "No,  there  is  nothing  for  me  to 
say  in  extenuation.  Even  if  I  tell  you— 

'"Sh!"  cried  Mrs.  Farrell,  putting  her  hand 
down  at  her  side  and  electrically  touching  that 
wrist  of  his  next  to  her;  "I  thought  somebody  was 
coming.  Yes,  I  know.  Even  if  you  tell  me  that  you 
meant  no  harm — and  I  don't  believe  you  did — still, 
don't  you  know —  Oh!"  she  broke  off,  "why  is  it 
that  there  isn't  some  common  ground  for  men  and 
women  to  meet  on,  and  be  helpful  to  each  other? 
Must  they  always  be  either  lovers  or  enemies? 
Yes,  enemies;  it's  really  a  state  of  almost  warfare; 
there  can't  be  any  kindness,  any  freedom,  any  sin 
cerity.  And  yet  there  are  times  in  every  woman's 
life  when  she  does  long  so  for  the  intelligence  as 
well  as  the  sympathy  of  some  good  man;  and  she 
can't  have  it  unless  she's  married  or  engaged.  She 
often  wants  to  see  how  some  action  of  her  own 
looks  through  a  man's  eyes,  and  the  wisest  woman 
can't  tell  her!  Every  new  disappointment  that  she 
meets  with  is  harder  to  bear.  I  didn't  mind  your 
kissing  my  hand ;  that's  nothing ;  it  might  even  be 
something  that  a  woman  would  be  proud  of;  but 
by  the  way  you  did  it  you  shocked  and  frightened 


MRS.   FARRELL 

me;   I  saw  that  you  had  misunderstood  me,  and  I 
— I  was  afraid  you  didn't — respect  me." 

Mrs.  Farrell's  grieving  mood  was  so  admirably 
represented  in  the  outline  of  her  cheek,  the  down 
ward  curve  of  the  corner  of  her  mouth,  the  low 
sweep  of  her  long  eyelash,  and  at  the  same  time  it 
was  so  discreetly  felt,  so  far  from  overcharged  or 
exaggerated,  that  even  an  indifferent  spectator 
must  have  been  affected  with  reverent  sympathy. 
Easton's  heart  was  wrung  with  unspeakable  ten 
derness  and  regret  and  shame.  He  could  not  break 
the  silence  that  followed  her  words  for  some  mo 
ments.  At  last  he  said,  "I  see  how  it  must  have 
appeared  to  you ;  but  it  was  not  so.  I  have  as  little 
hope  as  I  deserve  to  have  when  I  say — " 

"There!  Don't  speak  of  it  any  more,"  Mrs. 
Farrell  interrupted,  with  signs  of  returning  cheer 
fulness,  but  with  beams  not  too  speedily  tricked. 
"  Let's  not  think  of  it.  I  know  there  must  have 
been  something  to  blame  in  me.  I  have  a  way,"  she 
continued  regretfully,  "which  I'm  sure  no  one  feels 
the  disadvantage  of  more  than  I  do — a  sort  of  per 
verse  impulse;  I  don't  know  what  else  to  call  it — 
that  leads  me  to  try  people's  patience,  and  see  how 
far  I  can  go  with  them;  and  I'm  afraid  I  must  have 
abused  your  good-nature  yesterday  in  speaking  as 
I  did  of  your  friend." 

"You  said  nothing  against  him  that  I  remember." 

"I  ought  to  be  very  grateful,  then.    I  thought  I 
was  wrong  in  asking  you  about  your  military  rank 
and  his,  when  I  saw  that  you  were  avoiding  the  sub 
ject.     I  couldn't  help  it,  and  yet  I  meant  no  harm." 
7  97 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"I  know  you  meant  none.  I  won't  deny  that  I 
was  trying  to  avoid  the  subject.  It  was  placing 
me  in  the  ugly  light  of  seeming  to  boast  at  the 
expense  of  my  friend." 

"Yes,  yes;  I  knew  that;  and  I  suppose  it  was 
just  that  which  made  me  keep  on;  I  liked  to  see 
your  modesty  put  to  the  blush.  It  was  wrong; 
but  you  don't  think  I  had  any  very  bad  motive  in 
it?" 

"No,  none!"  said  Easton,  quickly. 

"I  am  so  glad.  I  know  Mr.  Gilbert  isn't  so 
generous!"  Easton  looked  at  her  inquiringly,  and 
"Oh,  Mr.  Easton,"  she  broke  out,  "what  have  I 
been  doing?  It  must  really  look  very  black  to  you. 
Mr.  Gilbert  has  just  been  here,  and  I  have  been 
talking  to  him  about  it — -I  don't  know  why  I  did; 
and  he  went  away  very  angry.  It  seems  just  as  if  I 
had  been  trying  to  make  a  quarrel  between  you!" 
She  hid  her  face  in  her  hands,  while  Easton  remained 
gravely  silent.  "Why  don't  you  speak  to  me? "  she 
implored  him,  without  taking  away  her  hands.  ' '  It 
will  kill  me  if  you  don't.  Say  something,  anything; 
blame  me,  scold  me!  You  know  you  think  I've 
behaved  very  wickedly.  You  do!" 

"No,  I  don't  think  so,"  replied  Easton,  seriously. 
He  looked  at  her  hopeless  face,  from  which  she  had 
now  withdrawn  her  hands,  and  he  seemed  to  be 
losing  his  fast  hold  upon  things,  upon  truth  and 
right  and  wrong.  Two  days  ago  he  had  not  seen 
this  face  or  known  that  it  was  in  the  world;  now  it 
was  so  heavenly  dear  to  him  that  it  seemed  to  de 
scribe  all  knowledge  and  being.  It  was  not  a  ques- 


MRS.   FARRELL 

tion  whether  she  had  a  right  to  violate  the  secrecy 
to  which  Gilbert's  silence  and  his  own  had  consigned 
the  fact  she  had  so  recklessly  played  with;  rightly 
or  wrongly  she  had  done  this,  and  he  had  now  to 
ask  himself  whether  he  could  forgive  her  error  to 
her  penitence.  Yet  he  did  not  ask  himself  that; 
she  had  done  it;  and  he  loved  her;  and  there  was 
an  end.  How  could  he  believe  ill  of  her?  What 
oblique  motive  could  he  attribute  to  her  that  his 
heart's  tenderness  would  suffer? 

4 'Ah,"  she  broke  out  again,  "you  can  never  for 
give  me — and  I  can  never  forgive  myself.  Why  did 
you  come  here  to  make  me  so  unhappy!" 

"Don't — don't  say  that!"  the  young  man  im 
plored.  "There  is  no  harm  done.  I  was  to  blame 
for  ever  talking  with  you  about  the  matter.  How 
could  I  expect  you  to  treat  it  with  seriousness  or 
secrecy?  You  couldn't  know  that  it  had  ever  been 
a  sore  affair  with  us.  Don't  be  troubled.  Gilbert's 
friendship  isn't  built  upon  such  a  slight  basis  that  it 
can't  bear — "  A  stifling  recollection  of  the  deli 
cacy,  passing  the  love  of  women,  with  which  they 
had  always  treated  each  other  smote  upon  him: 
what  could  Gilbert  think  of  his  delicacy  now?  "I 
can  make  it  all  right  with  him,"  he  continued,  as 
soon  as  he  could  get  breath. 

"With  him?"  murmured  Mrs.  Farrell.  "Then 
you  forgive  me?" 

"I  had  nothing  to  forgive,"  said  Easton,  with 
all  his  love  in  his  face;  so  that  she  looked  away 
and  blushed.  "Don't  think  of  it  any  more;  it's 
nothing." 

99 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"How  generous  you  are!  Oh,  women  couldn't 
be  like  that!  How  shall  I  thank  you?  I'll  never 
forgive  myself  in  the  world — that's  how,"  she  said, 
a  faint  smile  dawning  on  her  contrite  face. 

"That  would  be  a  poor  way.  I  want  you  to  be 
friends  with  those  I — -like." 

"Do  you  mean  Mr.  Gilbert?" 

"No,  I  don't  mean  Gilbert." 

Mrs.  Farrell  cast  down  her  eyes.  Then  she 
bravely  lifted  them.  "I  will  do  whatever  you  say," 
she  breathed,  and  a  radiant  light  came  from  her 
face  as  she  rose  and  stood  fronting  him.  "After 
what  I've  done  you  have  a  right  to  command  me. 
But  now  you  must  let  me  go.  I  have  some  things 
to  do.  You've  made  me  so  happy." 

"And  you  me!"  he  said,  and  he  took  her  hand, 
which  he  dropped  after  a  moment,  and  walked 
away,  giddy  with  his  insensate  joy.  All  his  soul 
was  flattered  by  the  far-hinting  sweetness  with 
which  she  had  used  him,  and  he  was  contented  in 
every  pulse.  When  he  despaired  he  had  felt  that 
he  must  tell  her  he  loved  her,  and  let  any  effect 
follow  that  would,  but  now  he  was  patient  with  the 
hope  which  he  hoped  she  had  given  him;  for  his 
confidence  did  not  go  beyond  this.  He  loved  too 
much  to  believe  himself  loved  or  to  perceive  that 
he  was  encouraged.  To  the  supreme  modesty  of 
his  passion  her  kindness  was  but  leave  to  live;  and 
he  was  abjectly  grateful  for  it.  He  lifted  his 
thoughts  to  her  with  worshiping  reverence;  it  was 
heaven  to  dwell  in  the  beauty  of  her  looks,  her  atti 
tudes,  her  movements;  the  sense  of  her  self- 

100 


MRS.  FARRELL 


reproachful  meekness  possessed  him  with  the 
tenderest  rapture.  How  could  he  expose  this  to 
the  harsh  misconception  of  his  friend?  How  could 
he  explain  her  blamelessness  as  he  felt  it?  He 
knew  the  sort  of  sarcastic  quiet  that  Gilbert  would 
keep  when  he  should  set  about  making  him  under 
stand  that  he,  Easton,  was  alone  guilty  in  any 
wrong  done  him;  that  he,  Easton,  had  given  her 
the  clue  which  she  had  afterward  followed  up,  from 
an  ignorant  caprice,  in  her  talk  with  Gilbert;  that 
she  had  bitterly  upbraided  herself  for  her  error,  and 
had  dreaded  its  effects  with  a  terror  that  he  had 
hardly  known  how  to  appease.  When  he  thought 
of  Gilbert's  incredulity,  his  heart  beat  fiercely;  and 
he  felt  that  he  could  not  suffer  it.  Yet  the  thing 
could  not  go  without  some  effort  on  his  part  to 
assure  his  friend  that  he  had  not  been  disloyal,  and 
how  to  give  him  this  assurance  he  did  not  see.  No, 
he  could  not  speak  of  it;  and  yet  he  must.  A 
veritable  groan  burst  from  his  lips  as  he  mounted 
a  little  hillock  in  the  road  and  took  off  his  hat  to 
wipe  away  the  drops  of  sweat  from  his  forehead. 
Whither  had  all  his  bliss  vanished?  A  thrush  sat 
in  the  elm  tree  over  him  and  sang  long  and  sweet, 
and  his  heart  ached  in  time  with  the  pulses  of  that 
happy  music.  A  little  way  off,  under  the  shadow  of 
this  tree,  Gilbert  lay  upon  the  grass,  with  his  face 
up  to  the  sky ;  and  it  was  to  Easton,  when  directly 
he  caught  sight  of  him,  as  if  he  had  laid  him  there 
dead.  He  fearfully  made  a  little  noise,  and  Gilbert 
opened  his  eyes,  and,  looking  at  him,  sat  up.  "I 
was  waiting  for  you,"  he  said,  gravely  and  not  un- 

101 


MRS.  FARRELL 


::  kindly.,  /"I  supposed  you  had  gone  over  to  the 
farm,  for  I  did  not  find  you  at  the  hotel.  Easton," 
he  continued,  "I  saw  Mrs.  Farrell  a  little  while  ago. 
Perhaps  you've  just  come  from  seeing  her?" 

"Yes,"  answered  Easton. 

"Perhaps  you  don't  know  what  we  talked  of?" 

"Yes,  I  do." 

"I  suppose  it  was  her  use  of  what  you  told  her 
that  annoyed  me;  but  I  can't  understand  how  you 
came  to  mention  the  matter  to  her  at  all;  much 
less  to  go  into  particulars,  as  you  seem  to  have 
done." 

Easton  colored,  but  did  not  speak. 

"Have  you  anything  to  say  to  me,  Easton?  I 
can't  bear  to  have  the  slightest  thing  between  us." 

"Not-— not  now." 

They  were  both  silent;  and  Easton  doggedly 
cast  down  his  eyes. 

"Very  well,  Easton,"  said  Gilbert,  rising  and 
going  toward  him,  "if  you  intend  to  say  something 
by  and  by,  and  can  justify  yourself  to  yourself  in 
making  me  wait,  it's  all  right;  I  can  wait." 

He  held  out  his  hand,  and  Easton  yearned  to 
grasp  it  as  it  was  offered,  but  his  cold  clasp  relaxed 
upon  it,  and  the  severed  friends  trudged  silently  on 
through  the  dust  toward  the  hotel. 


Chapter  VII 

fp"TT^HAT  evening  Gilbert  found  his  sister-in- 
law  well  of  her  headache,  and  disposed  to 
JL  celebrate  the  charm  of  a  headache  that 
always  went  off  with  the  going  down  of  the  sun. 
He  responded  at  random,  and  then  she  began  to 
talk  to  him  of  Easton,  and  he  listened  with  a  rest 
lessness  which  she  could  not  help  noticing.  "You 
don't  seem  to  care  to  sing  the  praises  of  your  idol, 
this  evening,"  she  said. 

"One  can't  always  be  singing  the  praises  of  one's 
idols,"  he  answered,  "if  you  like  to  call  them  so. 
One  wants  a  little  variety.  You  know  how  the 
Neapolitans  give  themselves  up  to  comfortable 
cursing  in  the  case  of  saints  who  don't  indicate  the 
winning  lottery  numbers." 

"I  don't  exactly  see  the  application,  William, 
but  I'm  always  ready  to  curse  anybody;  and  we 
will  devote  Mr.  Easton  to  a  little  malediction.  Have 
you  had  a  tiff?" 

"I  thought  you  were  going  to  curse,  and  you 
commence  questioning . ' ' 

"That's  true;  my  curiosity  is  uppermost.  Do 
tell  me  about  it.  I  suppose  Mrs.  Farrell  is  somehow 
at  the  bottom  of  it.  I  wouldn't  have  such  a  friend 
ship  as  yours  and  Easton 's  on  any  account.  It 

103 


MRS.  FARRELL 

has  cost  too  much.  I  wonder  you  haven't  assass 
inated  each  other  long  ago." 

1  Tm  glad  your  headache's  gone,"  said  Gilbert. 

"Yes,  that's  gone — thanks  to  the  sunset  or  the 
headache  pill.  But  I'm  getting  what  no  pill  has 
yet  been  patented  for;  I  mean  a  heartache,  and  for 
you,  my  poor  boy.  Oh,  you  open  book!  Don't 
you  suppose  I  can  read  where  that  woman  has 
written  Finis  in  her  high  -  shouldered  English 
hand  against  the  chapter  of  your  friendship  with 
Easton?" 

"You  are  taking  it  seriously,  Susan." 

' '  Well,  well.  See  if  I 'm  not  right.  I  thought  you 
told  me  your  friend  was  afraid  of  ladies.  Mrs.  Far- 
rell  seems  to  have  persuaded  him  that  they're  not 
so  dangerous.  He's  been  here  all  afternoon.  Oh, 
one  can  know  such  a  thing  as  that  even  with  the 
headache  in  a  darkened  room.  No,  not  the  whole 
afternoon;  they  were  gone  a  long  while  on  a  walk. 
He  follows  her  all  about  with  his  eyes  when  she 
won't  let  him  follow  on  foot ;  he's  making  a  perfect 
trophy  of  himself.  That's  the  report." 

"Very  likely,"  said  Gilbert.  "Easton  never  does 
things  by  halves." 

"He'd  better,  then — -some  things." 

"Why,  I  don't  know.  Why  shouldn't  he  marry 
her  if  he  wants?" 

"I  don't  believe  she  wants.  He  can't  take  her 
fancy  long,  though  very  likely  now  she  thinks  he 
can.  That  was  very  pretty  of  you  to  give  her  your 
trout,  this  morning,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert,  with  a 
sharp  look  at  her  brother-in-law.  "She  had  them 

104 


MRS.  FARRELL 

for  supper,  and  ate  a  great  many — for  your  sake,  I 
suppose.  It's  you  that  she  wants,  William!" 

' '  Does  she  ? ' '  asked  Gilbert , with  a  bitterish  accent. 
"She  has  an  odd  way  of  going  about  to  get  me." 

"What  has  she  done?"  demanded  Mrs.  Gilbert, 
making  an  instant  rush  for  the  breach.  Gilbert 
covered  it  with  a  quizzical  smile.  "Oh!"  she  con 
tinued,  plainly  enjoying  her  own  discomfiture, 
"when  will  men  learn  that  the  boomerang  is  the 
natural  weapon  of  woman?  We're  all  cross-eyed 
when  it  comes  to  love-glances ;  you  can't  tell  where 
we're  looking.  You  think  she's  aiming  at  Easton! 
Poor  fellow!" 

"If  I  stay  here  talking,"  said  Gilbert,  rising,  "I 
shall  bring  on  your  headache  again.  Good  night." 

"Oh,  William,"  Mrs.  Gilbert  appealed,  "some 
thing  sad  has  happened  between  you  and  Easton; 
and  I'm  very,  very  sorry.  I  liked  him,  too;  and 
I'm  grieved  to  have  your  old  friendship  touched. 
But  I  know  you  are  not  to  blame — and  don't  you 
be!  I  shall  hate  him  if  he  breaks  with  you.  Good 
night,  my  dear.  Don't  tell  me  anything  you  don't 
want  to." 

"I  won't,"  said  Gilbert,  kissing  his  hand  to  her 
at  the  door. 

She  could  not  help  laughing,  but  when  he  was 
gone  she  turned  to  the  glass  with  an  anxious  air, 
and  after  a  while  began  to  let  down  the  loose,  has 
tily  ordered  folds  of  her  hair.  She  stood  there  a 
long  time,  thoughtfully  brushing  it  out,  talcing  hold 
of  it  near  her  head  with  the  left  hand,  and  bending 
sidewise  as  she  smoothed  it  down.  In  the  light  of 

105 


MRS.  FARRELL 

the  kerosene  lamps  which  she  had  set  on  either 
side  of  the  mirror,  her  reflected  face  looked  up  from 
the  lucid  depths  with  an  invalid's  wanness,  which 
the  whimsicality  of  her  mouth  and  eyes  made  the 
more  pathetic.  Suddenly  she  glanced  round  at  the 
door  with  an  unchanging  face,  and  said,  "Come  in," 
in  answer  to  a  light  rap;  and  Rachel  Woodward 
entered  with  a  shy,  cold  hesitation. 

"Oh!—  Why,  Miss  Rachel!  Do  come  in!" 
repeated  Mrs.  Gilbert,  contriving  in  the  last  words 
to  subdue  the  surprise  of  her  first  tones.  "You 
won't  mind  my  brushing  my  hair?  There's  so  very 
little  of  it!  Sit  down." 

She  went  on  to  give  the  last  touches,  with  friendly 
looks  at  the  girl  in  the  glass,  and  with  various  little 
arts  of  inattention  trying  to  make  it  easy  for  her 
visitor  to  disembarrass  herself.  Then  she  sat  down 
in  her  rocking-chair,  facing  Rachel,  who  had  re 
ceived  her  kindliness  not  unkindly,  but  now  came 
promptly  to  her  business. 

"I  oughtn't  to  disturb  you  to-night,  Mrs.  Gil 
bert,"  she  said,  "and  I  should  have  come  Saturday 
night,  but  I  knew  you  had  company;  and  last 
night  was  Sabbath.  I  wanted  to  thank  you  for 
buying  that  picture  of  mine.  I  never  thought  of 
anyone's  buying  it;  and  I'm  afraid  you  gave  more 
than  you  ought.  I  couldn't  bear  you  should  do 
that.  I've  been  talking  about  it  with  mother,  and 
she  thinks  I  ought  to  offer  you  part  of  the  money 
back." 

Mrs.  Gilbert  listened  without  interruption  of  any 
sort,  and  the  girl,  doubtless  knowing  better  how  to 

1 06 


MRS.  FARRELL 

deal  with  this  impassiveness  than  with  that  second- 
growth  impulse  which  in  city  New-Englanders  has 
sprung  up  on  surfaces  shorn  so  bare  by  Puritanism, 
went  on  tranquilly. 

''We  think  it  is  like  this:  it  isn't  probable,  even 
if  this  picture  is  worth  all  of  what  you  paid,  that  I 
can  do  any  more  as  good,  and  if  you've  bought  it 
to  encourage  me,  I  might  disappoint  you  in  the 
end.  Besides,  we  should  not  be  willing  to  be  be 
holden  to  anybody." 

Having  said  her  say,  Rachel  waited  for  Mrs. 
Gilbert's  response,  who  answered,  quietly,  "I  know 
that  you  and  your  mother  are  perfectly  sincere,  and 
I  am  glad  you  came  to  say  this  to  me.  How  much 
should  you  think  I  ought  to  take  back?" 

Rachel  thought  a  moment  and  said,  soberly, 
"The  paper  cost  twenty-five  cents;  then  I  used 
some  of  a  preparation  of  Mrs.  Farrell's  to  keep  the 
charcoal  from  rubbing,  but  that  didn't  come  to 
anything.  If  my  picture  took  the  first  premium  at 
the  county  fair — we  did  think  some  of  sending  it 
there  at  first — it  would  be  three  dollars,  but  we 
should  have  had  to  pay  seventy-five  cents  for  en 
tering  it.  If  you  really  want  the  picture,  Mrs. 
Gilbert,  and  are  not  buying  it  for  any  other  reason, 
you  can  have  it  for  two  and  a  quarter." 

"Very  well,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert,  gravely,  "have 
you  brought  me  the  change?  Then  please  hand  it 
to  me,  as  I'm  an  old  lady  and  very  much  settled 
in  my  rocking-chair."  The  girl  obeyed,  and  ap 
proached  her  with  some  bank-notes  in  her  hand. 
The  elder  woman  leaned  forward  and  caught  her 

107 


MRS.  FARRELL 

by  either  wrist,  and  held  her,  while  she  exclaimed, 
"Rachel,  you're  the  manliest  girl,  and  your  mother's 
the  manliest  woman,  I  know  of — and  I  can't  say 
anything  better!  But  don't  think  you  can  take  ad 
vantage  of  my  sex,  for  all  that.  You  shall  not  give 
me  back  a  mill — if  there  is  such  a  thing  outside  of 
the  arithmetic.  Two  dollars  and  a  quarter!  Upon 
my  word  I  don't  know  whether  to  laugh  or  cry  at 
you!  I  didn't  know  there  was  so  much  uncomip- 
tion  left  Jn  the  world.  What  do  you  suppose  Mrs. 
Stevenson  will  be  asking  by  and  by  for  her  cat-tails, 
when  she's  learned  to  paint  them  for  door-panels? 
Why — no,  I  won't  blot  your  innocence  with  a  knowl 
edge  of  that  swindling.  Your  Blossom  is  worth  all 
I  paid  for  her.  Don't  be  afraid  that  I  bought  her 
to  encourage  you.  No,  my  dear,  that  isn't  my  line. 
I'm  the  great  American  discourager.  I  suppose 
Mrs.  Farrell  has  been  babbling  to  you  about  the 
admiration  your  picture  excited.  She's  a  foolish 
woman.  It  was  admired,  and  I  think  you  might 
be  a  painter.  But,  oh,  dear  me!  why  should  anyone 
encourage  you  on  that  account  ?  Talent  is  a  trouble 
and  a  vexation  even  to  men,  who  are  strong  enough 
to  fight  against  it;  but  for  women  it's  nothing  but 
misery.  The  only  hope  for  you  that  I  can  see  is 
that  you've  got  something  of  a  man's  honesty  and 
modesty  to  help  you  through.  Draw  up  your 
chair  and  sit  down  by  me,  Rachel.  I  want  to  talk 
to  you,  I  want  to  catechise  you.  Oh,  you  needn't 
be  afraid  of  me !  I'm  not  going  to  do  you  any  favor ; 
and  you  shall  keep  me  at  a  proper  distance  in  every 
thing  you  say!" 

1 08 


MRS.  FARRELL 

She  smiled  quizzically  at  the  girl's  constraint, 
and  added,  "But  I'm.  older  than  you,  and  I've  seen 
more  of  the  world,  and  maybe  I'll  be  able  to  tell 
you  some  things  it  would  be  useful  for  you  to  know. 
You  shall  pay  me  what  you  think  is  right,  if  I  do. 
Why  don't  you  want  to  be  beholden  to  anyone? 
Why  shouldn't  I  give  you  more  for  your  picture 
than  it's  worth,  if  I  like?" 

"I  don't  know,"  answered  Rachel,  shyly  puzzled. 
"It's  a  kind  of  feeling.  The  laborer  is  worthy  of 
his  hire;  but  he  isn't  if  he  takes  any  more." 

"Good!  first-rate!  And  you  shouldn't  think  it 
pleasant  to  have  things  given  to  you?" 

"Oh  no!"  cried  the  girl  quickly,  with  a  kind  of 
shiver;  "we  had  enough  of  that  when  father  was 
preaching,  and  we  used  to  have  to  take  everything 
we  ate  or  wore  as  a  sort  of  gracious  gift.  We  chil 
dren  didn't  feel  it  as  my  mother  did,  of  course. 
When  we  came  here —  "  but  at  this  word  she  stopped 
and  set  her  lips  firmly. 

"Go  on,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert.  "When  you  came 
here  your  mother  said  you  should  starve  and  go  in 
rags  before  you  took  a  shred  or  a  morsel  from 
anybody." 

"How  did  you  know?"  inquired  Rachel,  lifting 
her  eyes  in  a  calm,  grave  surprise. 

' '  I  knew  it  because  I  respect  your  mother.  When 
I  order  a  great  ideal  picture  of  America  from  you, 
you  shall  paint  me  your  mother's  portrait.  Only 
in  these  days  they'll  say  it  isn't  in  the  least  like 
America.  No  matter:  it's  like  what  she  has  been 
and  hasn't  forgotten  how  to  be  again." 

109 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Yes,"  said  Rachel,  simply,  "we  all  tell  mother 
there's  not  many  like  her  nowadays,  and  folks 
won't  understand  her  way  with  them,  and  will  lay 
it  to  pride." 

"Oh,  let  them  lay  it  to  what  they  like ! ' '  cried  Mrs. 
Gilbert,  with  enthusiasm.  "If  she  can  keep  the 
black  burden  of  gratitude  off  your  souls,  it's  no  mat 
ter.  It  hardens  the  heart  worse  than  prosperity." 

Rachel  looked  sober  at  the  expression  of  these 
cynical  ideas,  and  edged  ever  so  little  away  from 
Mrs.  Gilbert,  who  burst  into  a  laugh.  "Don't 
mind  my  harum-scarum  paradoxes,  Rachel!  I've 
had  a  great  many  kind  things  said  and  done  to  me, 
and  there  are  several  of  my  benefactors  whom  I 
don't  hate  at  all.  But  how  is  it,"  she  asked,  being 
perhaps  unable  to  deny  herself  the  pleasure  of 
looking  further  into  this  sincere  nature,  even  if  she 
used  an  unfair  pressure  in  her  questions — "how  is  it 
that  you  have  let  Mrs.  Farrell  give  you  lessons  in 
drawing  for  nothing?" 

Rachel  colored  and  was  silent  some  moments 
before  she  answered  with  dignity,  "We  can  take  it 
off  her  board,  when  we  find  out  what  it  ought  to 
be.  I  don't  know  as  they  could  rightly  be  called 
lessons.  I  never  copied  anything  of  hers." 

"I  can  very  well  imagine  it,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert, 
dryly.  "Do  you  admire  her  pictures?" 

Rachel  paused  again  before  answering.  "No,  I 
can't  say  I  do.  But  she  has  told  me  a  great  many 
useful  things,  and  she  has  corrected  what  I  was 
doing.  I  wish  you  hadn't  asked  me  that,  Mrs. 
Gilbert;  I  don't  think—-" 

no 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"It  was  quite  generous?  No,  it  wasn't;  but  I 
couldn't  help  it.  I've  never  seen  any  of  Mrs.  Far- 
rell's  work,  and  if  she's  been  of  use  to  you,  I  never 
want  to.  Don't  be  troubled.  You  haven't  been 
disloyal  to  your  friend.  Dear  me,  you  should  hear 
how  I  talk  about  my  friends!  Don't  go  yet,  my 
dear,"  coaxed  Mrs.  Gilbert,  "it  '11  be  a  real  charity 
to  stay  with  me  a  little  while,  to-night.  I'm  fretted. 
Do  you  like  to  draw?  Did  you  enjoy  doing  Blos 
som's  portrait?" 

"I  hardly  know  about  enjoying  it.  I  didn't 
think  of  my  own  feelings.  But — yes,  I  was  glad 
when  I  seemed  to  be  getting  it  right." 

"I  don't  quite  know  what  to  think  of  you,"  said 
Mrs.  Gilbert,  gravely,  and  the  calm-faced  young 
girl  returned  her  absent  look  with  one  that  claimed 
a  mutual  uncertainty.  Mrs.  Gilbert  resumed  sud 
denly  with,  "Rachel!  has  anybody  ever  been  so 
silly  as  to  talk  to  you  about  genius?" 

Rachel  smiled  a  little,  and  said  evasively  that 
she  did  not  mind  such  talk. 

"That's  right!"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert.  "Don't  get 
that  into  your  head;  it's  worse  poison  than  grati 
tude.  I'm  always  twaddling  about  it;  it's  my 
besetting  sin ;  but  I  hope  I  see  the  folly  and  wicked 
ness  of  it.  If  you  are  going  to  be  an  artist,  think 
of  pictures  as  hard  work;  don't  get  to  supposing 
that  all  your  little  efforts  are  inspirations.  God  has 
got  something  else  to  do.  Don't  be  alarmed  at  my 
way  of  putting  things;  it  doesn't  sound  like  religion, 
but  it  is.  If  he's  given  you  a  decided  talent  in  this 
way — and  it's  altogether  too  soon  yet  for  you  to  be 

in 


MRS.   FARRELL 

certain — it's  probably  because  he  finds  you  able  to 
'endure  hardness,'  as  Paul  says,  to  work  and  to  be 
consoled  and  occupied  by  working.  After  all,  my 
dear,  it's  like  every  other  thing  here  below;  it's 
only  a  kind  of  toy;  and  you  mustn't  let  it  be  your 
whole  life;  don't  be  selfishly  devoted  to  it.  Some 
times  it  seems  to  me  that  the  Lord  must  smile  to 
see  how  seriously  and  rapaciously  we  take  things. 
I  can  look  back  and  see  how  balls  and  parties  were 
once  my  toys,  and  my  engagement  was  only  a 
precious  plaything!  When  I  got  married,  what  a 
toy  that  was!  A  new  husband — just  think  of  it! 
What  an  amusement  for  a  young  girl!  And  my 
first  house,  how  I  played  with  it,  and  petted  it,  and 
made  it  pretty,  and  adored  it!  When  my  health 
gave  way,  it  all  changed,  but  I  had  my  toys  still. 
I  have  had  doctors  of  every  age  and  sex  for  dolls. 
I've  played  with  every  school  of  medicine;  just 
now  I've  a  headache  pill  that  I  idolize;  not  that  it 
keeps  me  from  having  the  headache.  The  main 
thing,  as  I  said,  is  not  to  be  selfish  with  your  toys. 
I  would  share  my  pills  with  my  worst  enemy." 

Mrs.  Gilbert  seemed  to  enjoy  the  gravity  with 
which  the  girl  listened,  and  to  be  as  well  satisfied 
as  if  she  had  taken  her  lightness  lightly.  Rachel 
answered  what  had  been  said,  so  far  as  it  related 
to  herself,  by  saying  that  she  had  scarcely  thought 
of  painting  as  a  profession,  and  that  she  did  not  see 
how  she  could  afford  to  study  it.  But  she  presumed 
that  if  it  were  meant  she  should,  a  way  would  be 
found  for  her  to  help  herself. 

"But  have  you  no  ambition  to  distinguish  your- 

112 


MRS.   FARRELL 

self?"  asked  Mrs.  Gilbert,  in  some  surprise  at  her 
coldness. 

"I  do  not  know  as  I  have,"  answered  the  girl. 
"If  I  was  sure  I  could  make  a  living  by  painting,  I 
should  like  it  better  than  anything  else;  but  unless 
I  took  portraits,  I  don't  suppose  I  could  make  it 
pay,  and  I  don't  think  I  could  paint  likenesses  of 
people." 

"Well,  I'm  glad  you  have  been  thinking  it  over 
so  soberly,  for  your  own  sake,  Rachel.  I  suppose 
you  didn't  get  these  ideas  from  Mrs.  Farrell?" 
asked  Mrs.  Gilbert. 

"Oh  no!  she's  very  hopeful,  and  thinks  I  should 
succeed  at  once." 

' '  Humph ! ' '  commented  Mrs.  Gilbert.  ' ' When  is 
your  school  out?" 

"It  ended  on  Friday." 

"Oh,  indeed!  And  are  you  going  to  help  your 
mother,  now?" 

1 '  Yes.  She's  not  so  well  as  common,  this  summer, 
and  we  can't  get  hired  help — any  that's  worth 
having." 

"Shall  you  wait  on  table?"  asked  Mrs.  Gilbert, 
with  a  keen  look. 

"No — not  just  at  first,"  said  Rachel,  with  a  little 
hesitation.  Mrs.  Gilbert  lifted  her  eyebrows,  and 
the  girl  blushed  and  added,  "I  wanted  to,  but 
mother  thought  it  wasn't  best  till  the  boarders  had 
forgotten  about — about  the — the  picture." 

"Your  mother  is  right.  They'll  forget  it  sooner 
than  you  think,"  answered  Mrs.  Gilbert,  looking  to 
see  if  this  arrow  hit.  But  it  seemed  to  fall  blunted 

8  113 


MRS.  FARRELL 

from  Rachel's  armor;  she  rose  and  said  she  must 
bid  Mrs.  Gilbert  good  night.  Mrs.  Gilbert  followed 
her  to  the  door.  "Don't  think,  my  dear,"  she  said, 
"that  I  meant  to  wound  your  feelings  by  saying 
that  they'd  soon  forget  your  picture.  Perhaps  it's 
true.  But  I  wanted  merely  to  see  if  you'd  any  false 
pride  about  you.  I  know  how  to  strike  it,  for  I'm 
full  of  it  myself.  Good  night,  Rachel ;  I  wish  you'd 
come  again.  Do  let  me  be  of  use  to  you,  if  I  can; 
and  tell  your  mother  that  I  couldn't  consent  to 
give  less  than  I  did  for  Blossom.  I  bought  it  at  the 
lowest  price  conscience  would  let  me.  You  don't 
blame  me  for  having  my  way  about  it,  do  you?" 
Rachel  dropped  her  eyes  as  Mrs.  Gilbert  took  her 
passive  hand. 

She  turned,  as  Rachel  closed  the  door,  to  her 
bureau,  near  which  the  girl  had  paused ;  some  loose 
bills  lay  on  it;  a  five,  a  two,  three  quarters.  Mrs. 
Gilbert's  talk  had  ended  as  it  began,  and  she  had 
paid  two  dollars  and  a  quarter  for  Rachel's  pic 
ture,  after  all,  as  Rachel  had  steadfastly  meant 
from  the  first.  She  gave  a  sharp  "Ah!"  and  flung 
the  money  on  the  bureau  again  in  disgust.  "The 
girl's  granite!" 


Chapter  VIII 

A  the  best,  love  is  fatal  to  friendship;  the 
most  that  friendship  can  do  is  to  listen  to 
love's  talk  of  itself  and  be  the  confident  of 
its  rapturous  joys,  its  transports  of  despair.  The 
lover  fancies  himself  all  the  fonder  of  his  friend 
because  of  his  passion  for  his  mistress,  but  in 
reality  he  has  no  longer  any  need  of  the  old  com 
rade.  They  cannot  talk  sanely  and  frankly  to 
gether  any  more;  there  is  something  now  that  they 
cannot  share ;  even  if  the  lover  desired  to  maintain 
the  old  affectionate  relation,  the  mistress  could  not 
suffer  it.  The  specter  of  friendship  is  sometimes 
invited  to  haunt  the  home  of  the  lovers  after  mar 
riage;  but  when  their  happiness  has  been  flaunted 
in  its  face,  when  it  has  been  shown  the  new  house, 
the  new  china,  the  new  carpets,  the  new  garden, 
it  is  tacitly  exorcised,  and  is  not  always  called 
back  again  except  to  be  shown  the  new  baby.  The 
young  spouses  are  ever  so  willing  to  have  the  poor 
ghost  remain;  the  wife  learns  whether  it  takes  two 
or  three  lumps  of  sugar  in  its  tea;  the  husband  bids 
it  smoke  anywhere  it  likes,  and  the  wife  smiles  a 
menacing  acquiescence;  but  all  the  same  they  turn 
it  out-of-doors.  They  praise  it  when  it  is  gone,  and 
they  feel  so  much  more  comfortable  to  be  alone. 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Mrs.  Farrell  had  only  hastened  a  natural  result 
from  Easton's  passion  for  her,  which  now  declared 
itself  without  any '  of  the  conventional  reserves. 
It  was  the  degree  of  passion  which  is  called  a  per 
fect  infatuation  by  the  tranquil  spectator,  but  which 
probably  appears  a  reasonable  enough  condition 
both  to  the  subject  and  the  object  of  it.  In  fact, 
there  is  no  just  cause  why  every  woman  should  not 
reduce  some  man  to  it;  it  is  a  hardship  that  she 
cannot;  in  a  better  state  of  things  no  doubt  she 
could. 

Easton  found  in  Mrs.  Farrell's  presence  a  relief 
from  thoughts  that  troubled  him  when  away  from 
her;  when  he  beheld  her,  or  heard  her  speak,  his 
bliss  was  so  great  that  his  heart  could  not  harbor 
self-reproach;  but  at  other  times  it  upbraided  him 
that  he  was  making  Gilbert  wait  for  the  explanation 
that  was  his  instant  due.  His  love  had  revealed  to 
him  a  whole  new  world  of  rights  and  duties  which 
seemed  at  war  with  those  of  the  world  he  had 
always  lived  in  before.  This  new  passion  claimed 
reverence  for  an  ideal  as  exacting  as  that  of  the 
old  friendship;  and  perfect  loyalty  to  both  seemed 
beyond  him. 

Gilbert  neither  shunned  nor  sought  him;  and 
it  was  Easton's  constraint  under  his  friend's  patience 
that  made  their  being  together  intolerable.  When 
they  met  they  never  spoke  of  Mrs.  Farrell,  or  in 
deed  of  anything  but  passing  trifles;  and  Easton 
avoided  his  friend  as  much  as  he  could  until  the 
inspired  moment  should  come  to  do  him  justice; 
the  moment  which  seemed  to  retreat  farther  and 

116 


MRS.  FARRELL 

farther  from  him  the  more  he  tasted  the  supreme 
bliss  which  life  now  held  to  his  lip.  Their  affairs 
had  come  to  this  pass  when,  on  Friday,  Gilbert 
abruptly  announced  that  he  had  arranged  with 
one  of  the  men  at  the  hotel  to  spend  a  few  days  in 
camp  on  the  northern  side  of  the  mountain,  where 
the  brooks  were  less  accessible  and  less  fished 
than  those  of  West  Pekin.  He  made  no  pretense  of 
asking  Easton  to  go  with  him;  and  he  parted  from 
him  with  a  nod  when  his  wagon  with  the  camping 
outfit  in  it  drove  up  to  the  door.  They  had  often 
parted  as  carelessly,  but  with  a  difference.  Easton 
watched  the  wagon  out  of  sight,  and  then  started 
toward  Woodward  farm  with  a  sigh  of  sad  relief. 

He  was  seen  coming  every  morning  by  the  ladies 
on  watch,  who  had  made  so  careful  a  study  of  his 
face  that  they  knew  by  its  changes  from  desperate 
courage  and  endurance  to  all-forgetting  ecstasy  the 
very  moment  when  he  caught  sight  of  Mrs.  Farrell ; 
and  they  could  not  help  rejoicing  in  the  perfect 
abandon  of  his  loverhood  It  was  indeed  a  devotion 
not  less  than  heroic,  which  none  but  a  primitive  soul, 
nurtured  in  high  and  pure  ideals,  could  have  been 
capable  of;  it  was  so  unlike  the  languid  dangling 
which  they  had  been  used  to  call  attentions,  that 
they  could  not  help  regarding  it  with  a  tender 
admiration;  they  were  all  half  in  love  with  a  man 
who  could  be  so  wholly  in  love,  and  they  began  to 
respect  the  woman  who  could  inspire  such  a  passion. 
They  even  liked  the  unsparing  directness  with 
which  he  made  it  appear  that  he  came  to  see  Mrs. 
Farrell  and  no  one  else;  that  he  cared  to  speak  to 

117 


MRS.  FARRELL 

no  other,  to  look  at  none  but  her;  they  sweetly 
bore,  they  even  approved,  the  almost  savage  frank 
ness  with  which  he  went  away  when  she  was  absent. 
He  made  no  pretenses  of  any  sort ;  he  did  not  bring 
a  book  as  excuse  for  coming  to  see  her;  he  had  no 
scruple  about  asking  her  before  half  a  piazza  full 
of  people  to  walk  or  drive  with  him;  when  he  sat 
down  beside  her,  in  whatever  presence,  he  always 
seemed  to  be  alone  with  her. 

She  would  perhaps  have  been  satisfied  with  a  less 
perfect  surrender;  it  looked  sometimes  as  if  his 
worship  alarmed  and  puzzled  her;  but  for  the  most 
she  received  it  in  good  part;  and  if  she  ever  found 
it  necessary  to  administer  a  snub,  he  took  it  with 
heroic  patience;  it  plainly  hurt  him  to  his  heart's 
core,  but  plainly  it  did  not  daunt  him ;  the  next  day 
he  wooed  as  ardently,  and  he  never  dreamed  of 
resenting  it. 

They  walked  a  good  deal,  the  following  week,  to 
the  wood  where  they  had  sat  on  the  first  Sunday 
among  the  ferns,  and  there  he  read  to  her,  or  talked 
to  her  in  the  freedom  of  a  heart  never  opened  to  a 
woman  before.  Love  baptizes  us  with  a  new  youth 
whenever  it  comes ;  the  talk  of  all  lovers  is  like  the 
babble  of  childhood,  and  a  heavenly  simpleness 
inspires  it.  This  is  so,  whatever  the  number  of  the 
passion;  it  is  true  in  even  greater  degree  if  first 
love  comes  when  the  lover  is  well  toward  his  thir 
ties.  Easton  was  one  of  the  most  single-hearted  of 
men,  but  pride  had  kept  him  one  of  the  most  re 
served.  Now  love  came,  and,  taking  away  his  pride 
toward  her  he  loved,  seemed  to  leave  him  no  re- 

118 


MRS.   FARRELL 

serve.  He  told  her  what  his  life  had  been,  what  his 
theories  of  life  were;  his  likes,  his  dislikes;  things 
that  had  happened  to  him  as  a  boy  at  school ;  about 
his  uncle  who  had  brought  him  up  and  left  him  his 
money;  that  he  looked  like  this  uncle ;  he  even  told 
of  curious  dreams  that  he  had  dreamt.  A  load  lay 
on  his  heart  all  the  time:  it  was  the  thought  of 
Gilbert,  whom  alone  he  would  not  speak  of,  though 
the  talk  seemed  to  be  always  drifting  toward  him. 

They  were  sitting  in  the  old  place  on  the  Saturday 
afternoon  of  the  week  after  Gilbert's  departure. 
Gilbert  was  staying  longer*  than  his  sister-in-law  had 
expected,  and  there  had  begun  to  be  a  vague 
wonder,  not  yet  deepened  to  anxiety,  at  his  pro 
longed  absence,  which  Easton  inwardly  shared. 
He  began  to  speak  now,  with  the  intention  of  talk 
ing  of  Gilbert,  as  if  it  would  be  some  sort  of  repara 
tion  to  praise  him  to  Mrs.  Farrell. 

"Do  you  remember,"  he  asked,  "being  surprised 
that  afternoon  when  I  told  you  what  an  idler  in  the 
world  I  was?" 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  "we  were  both  rather 
foolish  that  afternoon,"  and  she  looked  at  him  de 
murely  from  under  her  fallen  lashes. 

Easton  laughed  a  flattered  lover's  laugh.  "But 
you  have  forgiven  me." 

"And  you  me.    So  sweet  to  be  forgiven!" 

They  both  laughed,  and  she  went  on.  "How 
funny  it  seems,  after  such  a  very  unpromising  start, 
that  you  should  be  sitting  here  with  me  again,  and 
really  quite  tolerating  me." 

"Yes,"  he  said  in  a  hoarse  undertone,  "very 
119 


MRS.  FARRELL 

droll";  but  he  was  thinking  in  a  rapturous  absence 
how  far  her  word  was  from  painting  his  attitude 
toward  her.  In  the  same  sense  one  might  tolerate 
the  hope  of  heaven.  Mrs.  Farrell  laughed  again, 
and  he  smiled  his  happiness. 

"You  seem  to  like  being  laughed  at  better  than 
you  did  at  first,  Mr.  Easton,"  she  said,  gravely. 
"Why?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know;  perhaps  it's  practice.  It 
would  be  a  pity  if  we  learned  nothing  from  ex 
perience." 

"Very  true,  very  true  indeed.  I've  no  doubt  you 
could  learn  a  great  many  useful  things.  For  in 
stance,  now  you  like  being  laughed  at  before  your 
face,  perhaps  you  will  come  to  like  being  laughed  at 
behind  your  back." 

"I  think  that  would  be  more  difficult." 

"Well,  let  us  try:  I  laughed  at  you  to  the  Wood 
wards  that  morning  when  you  mended  our  broken 
holdback  with  your  -handkerchief.  It  seemed  such 
a  wanton  waste  of  handkerchief;  and  you  did  it 
with  the  air  of  laying  down  -your  life,  -of  shedding 
your  last  drop  of  blood,  for  our  sakes.  It  was  too 
ridiculous!  There;  how  do  you  like  that?" 

"I  don't  mind  it — much." 

"Well,  you're  really  getting  on.  Shall  I  tell  you 
now  how  I  made  fun  of  you  to  Mr.  Gilbert?" 

The  name  gave  Easton  a  shock.  Gilbert  had 
gone  wholly  out  of  his  mind ;  but  that  was  not  the 
worst.  He  grew  pale,  and  remained  silently 
frowning. 

"Oh  dear!  now  I've  done  it  again,"  cried  Mrs. 
120 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Farrell.  "I  wonder  which  cord  of  your  high-strung 
friendship  I've  snapped  this  time.  I  wish  you'd 
never  brought  it  near  a  plain,  every-day  person 
like  me.  I  can  weep  for  my  crime,  if  that  will  do 
any  good."  She  drew  out  a  handkerchief,  and 
began  to  make  a  conspicuous  pretense  of  drying 
her  tears.  Then  she  dropped  it,  and  as  Easton 
made  a  movement  to  restore  it  to  her  he  suddenly 
arrested  himself. 

"Why,  this  is  my  handkerchief,"  he  said. 

"Excuse  me,  Mr.  Easton,"  retorted  Mrs.  Farrell 
with  exaggerated  hauteur,  "the  handkerchief  is 
mine.  Will  you  give  it  back,  or  shall  I  scream  for 
help?  This  wood  is  inhabited,  and  a  lady  doesn't 
cry  out  in  vain.  Come,  sir;  my  property!" 

She  reached  forward  for  it,  and  Easton  withheld 
it.  "How  came  it  yours?"  he  asked. 

"Ben  Woodward  found  it  on  the  buggy  harness 
two  weeks  ago,  and  brought  it  to  me.  I  washed  it 
and  ironed  it  nicely  with  my  own  hands.  'That 
handkerchief  did  an  Egyptian  to  my  mother  give. 
She  was  a  charmer,  and  could  almost  read  the 
thoughts  of  people.  There's  magic  in  the  web  of 
it.  A  sibyl,  that  had  numbered  in  the  world  the 
sun  to  course  two  hundred  compasses,  in  her 
prophetic  fury  sewed  the  work.'"  Mrs.  Farrell 
declaimed  the  words  with  fire,  and  at  the  last 
caught  quickly  at  the  handkerchief,  which  Easton 
still  held  beyond  her  reach.  Then  she  made  a 
fascinating  pretense  of  taking  up  a  point  of  her  over- 
skirt  in  her  left  hand  to  wipe  her  eyes  with  it  as 
with  an  apron. 

121 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"What  will  you  give  me  in  exchange  for  it?" 

"Nothing,"  she  said,  coldly.  "Why  should  I 
wish  to  buy  your  handkerchief  of  you?  I  have 
enough  of  my  own;"  and  while  Easton  looked  in 
unguarded  embarrassment  at  her  face,  to  see  if  she 
were  really  offended  or  not,  she  caught  the  hand 
kerchief  from  him  and  ran  it  swiftly  into  that  fold 
of  her  dress  where  her  pocket  lurked.  "Now! "  she 
said,  and  looked  at  him  with  beautiful  mocking. 

He  gave  a  laugh  of  confusion  and  pleasure,  and, 
"Oh,  you  carry  it  off  very  well,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell. 

"Where  did  you  study  Shakespeare?"  he  asked. 

"At  school,  where  he  wasn't  in  the  course.  Look 
here,  Mr.  Easton :  I  think  you  ought  to  be  punished, 
instead  of  rewarded,  for  your  attempt  on  my  hand 
kerchief.  But  I  am  so  forgiving  that  I  can't  be 
harsh  with  the  basest  offenders.  So  I  am  really 
going  to  let  you  have  something  in  exchange  for 
this  handkerchief,  and  I  hope  you'll  read  it  often 
and  often."  She  drew  her  hand  from  her  pocket 
and  offered  him  a  little  book.  "Don't  you  remem 
ber  the  book  you  picked  up  for  me  in  the  meadow? 
Here  it  is.  You  won't  find  my  name  in  it?"  She 
put  up  her  hand  to  waive  his  thanks,  and  added, 
hastily:  "Spare  your  gratitude.  I  want  to  get  rid 
of  the  book.  It's  a  constant  reproach  to  me,  and  a 
constant  reminder  of  my  very  bold  behavior  that 
day.  But  I  couldn't  help  it.  Oh,  Mr.  Easton! 
You  know  I  left  that  book  there  so  that  I  could 
come  back  and  get  a  better  look  at  you  two,  don't 
you?" 

"Yes,  I  know  that." 

122 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"And  could  you  really  pardon  such  a  shameless 
trick?" 

"I  rather  liked  to  have  you  look  at  me." 

"Don't  prevaricate!  Do  you  approve  of  such 
actions?" 

"You  did  it." 

"Oh,  but  that's  personal.  Why,  you're  actually 
shuffling!  Now,  tell  me  whether  you  don't  think 
it  was  very  unladylike  and  unbecoming." 

"I  saw  no  harm  in  it." 

"Well,  you  are  large-minded.  If  I  had  been  in 
your  place  I  should  certainly  have  suspected  some 
ulterior  motive." 

"Like  what?" 

"Like  what?  Why,  like  my  wanting  you  to  see 
me!" 

Easton  merely  laughed.  "I  hadn't  thought  of 
that, ' '  he  said.  Her  daring  was  delicious ;  he  wanted 
her  to  talk  on  so  forever.  But  she  sat  looking  at 
him  a  full  minute  before  she  spoke. 

"Well,"  she  said  at  last,  "I  don't  know  what  to 
make  of  such  mercifulness.  I'm  not  used  to  it.  I 
think  I  might  have  been  different  if  I  hadn't  always 
been  so  sharply  judged.  What  I  do  isn't  so  very 
bad,  that  I  can  see,  but  people  seem  to  think  it  is 
awful.  The  onlyjpeople  I've  ever  seen  who  could 
make  any  allowance  for  me  are  the  Woodwards. 
I  suppose  it  must  seem  very  odd  to  you,  my  being 
with  them  so  much,  and  so  little  with  the  other 
boarders.  But  you  go  where  you  find  sympathy. 
It  seems  to  me  I've  always  been  alone,"  she  said 
with  passionate  self-pity  that  dimmed  her  eyes. 

123 


MRS.   FARRELL 

She  dried  them  with  Easton's  handkerchief,  and 
turned  her  face  away. 

He  could  not  have  spoken  now  without  pouring 
out  his  whole  heart,  and  to  speak  of  love  to  her  in 
this  mood  would  be  like  seizing  an  advantage  which 
his  fantastic  notions  of  justice  forbade  him  to  take. 

"You  don't  know  what  good  people  they  are," 
she  resumed,  with  her  face  still  averted.  "When  I 
was  sick  with  a  fever  here,  two  summers  ago,  they 
cared  for  me  as  if  I  were  their  own  child.  And  there 
isn't  anything  I  wouldn't  do  for  them — anything! 
I  was  very  sick  indeed,"  she  went  on,  turning  her 
eyes  upon  him  now,  and  speaking  very  solemnly, 
1 '  and  I  suppose  that  I  could  not  have  lived  without 
their  nursing.  It  was  in  their  busiest  time,  and 
they  sent  people  away  so  that  they  could  have  a 
chance  to  care  for  me.  Mr.  Easton,"  she  cried,  as 
if  fired  with  a  generous  inspiration,  "you  must  get 
better  acquainted  with  Rachel  Woodward.  She  and 
you  are  just  of  a  piece.  She's  quite  as  large-minded 
as  you  are,  and  as  unsuspicious  and — good.  Yes, 
I  know  you're  good ;  you  needn't  try  to  deceive  me. 
I'm  not.  I'm  full  of  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit. 
I  don't  know  what  I  want;  I'm  restless,  and  per- 
turbated,  and  horrid.  But  there's  nothing  of  that 
kind  about  Rachel  Woodward;  she's  a  born  saint, 
and  goes  round  accepting  self-sacrifice  as  if  it  were 
her  birthright.  For  all  she's  got  such  a  genius  for 
drawing,  I  suppose  she'd  settle  down  into  a  common 
country  drudge  without  a  murmur,  if  she  found  it 
in  the  line  of  duty.  Duty!  what  is  duty?  It's  the 
greatest  imposition  of  the  age,  I  think."  Mrs. 

124 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Farrell  had  now  quite  emerged  from  her  clouds, 
and  was  able  to  share  Easton's  joy  in  her  nonsense. 
"I  know  Mr.  Gilbert  didn't  think  so  kindly  of  my 
coming  back  after  that  book,"  she  said,  as  if  this 
were  the  natural  sequence  of  what  had  gone  before, 
and  had  been  in  her  mind  all  the  time. 

Easton's  embarrassment  appeared  in  his  face, 
but  he  said  nothing. 

"Oh  well,  never  mind,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  rising, 
"he's  welcome  to  hate  me  if  he  likes;  and  I  suppose 
he'll  end  by  making  you  hate  me,  too.  I'm  sure  it's 
very  good  of  you  to  respite  me  so  long."  She  gave 
the  faintest  sigh,  and  began  to  arrange  her  dress 
for  walking  away,  looking  first  over  one  shoulder, 
and  then  over  the  other,  at  her  skirt  behind. 

Neither  of  them  said  anything,  as  they  quitted 
the  place  where  they  had  been  sitting,  by  a  path 
that  led  homeward  through  a  rocky  dell,  farther 
around  than  that  they  usually  came  and  went  by. 
In  this  dell  there  was  a  shade  of  maples  thicker  than 
elsewhere  in  the  woods,  and  the  heavy  granite  bowl 
ders  started  from  the  soil  in  fantastic  and  threaten 
ing  shapes,  very  different  from  the  sterile  repose 
that  they  kept  in  the  neighboring  fields  and  woods. 
Something  of  the  old,  elemental  strife  lingered 
there  yet ;  the  aspect  of  the  place  was  wild,  almost 
fierce;  the  trout -brook,  that  stole  so  still  through 
the  flat  meadows  on  either  side  of  the  dell,  quarreled 
along  its  rocky  course  in  this  narrow  solitude,  and 
filled  it  with  a  harsh  din  of  waters.  But  the  soil  in 
the  crevices  and  little  spaces  between  the  granite 
masses  was  richer  than  anywhere  else  on  the  farm, 

125 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Earlier  in  the  season,  wherever  the  sun  could  look 
through  the  maple  boughs  it  saw  a  host  of  wild 
flowers,  and  in  its  turn  the  shade  detained  the 
spring,  and  there  were  still  violets  here  in  July,  and 
the  shy  water  plants  unfolded  their  bloom  at  every 
point  along  the  margin  of  the  fretted  brook  where 
they  could  find  foothold.  No  maples  yielded  a 
more  bounteous  sweet  than  these  in  the  shrewish 
April  weather,  when  the  Woodward  boys  came  and 
tapped  their  gnarled  trunks;  and  in  the  lower  end 
of  the  valley  stood  the  sugar  house,  with  its  rusty 
iron  pans  and  kettles,  and  its  half-ruinous  brick 
oven  and  chimney,  where  they  boiled  the  sap. 
Because  the  brook  perhaps  ran  cooler  here  than  in 
the  meadows,  the  cattle  from  the  neighboring  pas 
tures  came  to  drink  at  the  pool  which  its  waters 
gathered  into  at  one  place,  just  before  it  took  the 
final  fray  with  the  rocks  and  broke  out  into  the 
open  sunlight  beyond,  where  it  lulled  itself  among 
the  grassy  levels.  An  oriole  had  made  its  nest  in 
the  boughs  that  overhung  this  pool;  and  higher  up 
in  the  same  tree  lived  a  family  of  red  squirrels, 
some  member  of  which  was  pretty  sure  to  challenge 
every  passer.  In  the  bushes  that  thickened  about 
the  meadow-border  in  sight  of  the  farmhouse 
lived  thrushes  and  catbirds ;  and  in  the  very  heart 
of  the  dell,  a  rain  crow  often  voiced  his  lugubrious 
foreboding. 

Mrs.  Farrell  entered  by  the  vagrant  path  that 
the  cattle's  hoofs  had  made,  and  midway  of  the 
hollow  she  paused  and,  resting  her  arm  on  a  tall 
bowlder,  looked  round  the  place  with  a  certain  joy 

126 


MRS.  FARRELL 

in  her  face,  as  of  kindred  wildness.  Her  rich  eyes 
glowed,  her  bosom  rose,  and  her  breaths  were  full 
and  deep.  If  she  could  indeed  have  been  some 
wild,  sylvan  thing,  with  no  amenability  to  our  cri- 
terions,  one  could  not  have  asked  more  of  her  than 
to  be  as  she  was ;  but  behind  her  came  a  man  who 
loved  her  as  a  woman,  and  whose  heart  was  building 
from  its  hopes  of  her  that  image  of  possession  and 
of  home  which  love  bids  the  most  hapless  passion 
cherish.  When  he  came  up  with  her  he  looked  into 
her  face  and  said,  as  if  no  silence  had  followed  her 
last  speech,  his  thoughts  had  been  so  voluble  to  him, 
"Why  do  you  talk  to  me  about  hating  you?" 

"Why?"  she  echoed  with  a  look  of  alarm,  and 
signs  of  that  inward  trepidation  which  every  woman 
must  feel  at  such  a  moment.  "Oh,"  she  added,  with 
a  weak  effort  to  jest  fate  aside,  "I  suppose  that  I 
thought  you  ought  to  hate  me." 

"No,"  said  Easton,  with  a  passionate  force  that 
nothing  could  have  stayed,  "you  know  I  love  you ! " 

Her  dark  bloom  went,  but  in  an  instant  came 
again,  with  what  swiftly  blended  emotions  no  man 
may  guess  and  possibly  no  woman  could  tell,  and 
"How  can  you  say  such  a  thing  to  me?"  she  de 
manded  with  the  imperiousness  of  fear.  "You — 
you  hardly  know  me — it's  hardly  a  week  since  we 
met." 

"A  week?  What  does  it  matter?  I  have  never 
loved  any  other  woman;  I  know  that  you  are  free 
to  love  me,  if  you  can;  I  don't  care  for  any  other 
knowledge  of  you.  Oh,  don't  answer  me  yet! 
Listen:  I  don't  ask  you  to  love  me  now;  what 

127 


MRS.   FARRELL 

right  have  I  to  do  that  ?  But  only  let  me  love  you ! 
I  can  wait.  I  can  be  silent,  if  you  say  so.  You  are 
my  whole  life,  and  my  whole  life  is  yours,  if  you 
choose  to  make  me  wait  so  long.  How  could  it  be 
better  spent?" 

She  sank  down  upon  a  shelf  of  rock  beside  that 
she  had  leaned  upon,  and  he  fell  at  her  feet,  and  then 
with  the  unsparingness  of  love  which  claims  nothing 
and  takes  all,  "Oh,  my  darling!"  he  murmured,  and 
stretched  his  arms  toward  her. 

She  stayed  him  with  a  little  electric  touch. 
"Don't!"  she  whispered,  and  after  a  look  at  him 
she  hid  her  face. 

He  did  not  move;  his  attitude  did  change,  but 
still  expressed  his  headlong  hope,  as  if  a  sculptor 
had  caught  it  in  immutable  stone;  but  when  she 
drew  out  his  handkerchief  and,  pressing  it  to  her 
eyes,  handed  it  to  him  and  said,  with  trembling  lips, 
"Take  it;  give  me  my  book,"  a  terrible  despair 
blanched  his  face. 

"Oh!"  he  moaned. 

"Yes,"  she  said,  "I  must  be  free.  I  can't  think 
if  I'm  not  free;"  and  she  put  the  book,  which  he 
mechanically  surrendered,  into  her  pocket. 

"You  shall  be  as  free  of  me  as  you  will,"  he 
answered.  "I  ask  nothing  of  you — only  leave  to 
love  you.  I  will  go  away,  if  you  say  it.  I  must  be 
to  blame  for  speaking,  if  it  gives  you  so  much  pain. 
I  would  rather  have  died  than  hurt  you." 

An  imploring  humility,  an  ineffable  tenderness 
evoked  by  her  trouble,  shook  his  voice.  She  did 
not  answer  at  once,  but,  "You  are  not  to  blame; 

128 


MRS.  FARRELL 

I  should  be  very  ungrateful  and  very  cruel  to  suffer 
it,"  she  said,  after  a  while,  "but,  oh,  I'm  afraid  that 
I  must  have  been  behaving  very  badly,  very  boldly, 
to  make  you  talk  so  to  me,  so  soon.  I'm  afraid," 
she  said,  bowing  her  head,  "that  you  don't  respect 
me — that  you  think  I  was  trying  to  make  you  care 
for  me." 

' '  Respect  you ! "  he  echoed.    ' '  I  love  you.  * ' 

"Yes,  yes,  I  know  that.  But  it  isn't  the  same 
thing!" 

He  stood  bewildered,  where  he  had  risen  from  her 
feet,  and  looked  down  into  her  face,  which  she  now 
lifted  toward  him.  "  If  I  had  been  another  kind  of 
woman,  you  wouldn't  have  said  it  to  me!" 

"No;  if  you  had  been  other  than  you  are,  I 
should  not  have  loved  you,"  said  the  young  man, 
gravely. 

"Oh,  I  don't  mean  that.  I  mean —  Oh,  Mr. 
Easton,  what  is  it  you  find  to  love  in  me?  What 
did  I  ever  do  or  say  that  you  ought  to  love  me? 
Why  do  you  love  me?" 

"I  don't  know.  Because — you  are — you  are  my 
love." 

"Is  it  my  looks  you  care  for?" 

"Your  looks?  Yes,  you  are  beautiful.  I  hadn't 
thought  of  that." 

' '  But  if  I  wasn't,  you  would  never  have  cared  for 
me." 

"How  can  I  tell?  I  have  no  reasons.  You  are 
the  one  human  creature  in  all  the  world  whose  being 
or  doing  I  can't  question.  You  are  what  I  love, 
whatever  you  are." 

9  129 


MRS.  FARRELL 

" Is  it  true?  How  strange!"  said  Mrs.  Farrell. 
"And  if  I  had  always  been  very  cold  and  reserved 
and  stiff  with  you,  and  not  come  back  after  that 
book,  and  not  let  you  take  a  hairpin  out  of  my 
chignon,  and  not  made  mischief  between  you  and 
your  friend,  and  not  been  so  ready  to  walk  and  ride 
with  you  in  season  and  out  of  season,  and  not 
rather — well! — cut  up  with  you  to-day  about  that 
handkerchief,  would  you  have  loved  me  all  the 
same?" 

She  was  still  looking  very  seriously  into  his  face, 
so  very  seriously  that  he  could  not  help  the  smile 
that  the  contrast  of  her  words  and  mien  brought  to 
his  lips. 

"Don't!  Don't  laugh!"  she  pleaded  piteously. 
"I'm  trying  to  get  at  something." 

' '  But  there  is  nothing,  nothing  for  you  to  get  at ! " 
he  cried  out.  "If  I  tried  forever,  I  could  only  say 
at  last  that  I  love  you." 

"Yes,  but  you  oughtn't  to,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell, 
with  a  sigh.  "You  don't  know  anything  about  me. 
You  don't  know  who  or  what  I  am. ' '  She  restrained 
a  movement  of  impatience  on  his  part.  "I'm  not 
at  all  like  other  people.  My  father  was  nothing 
but  a  ship's  captain,  and  he  had  been  a  common 
sailor;  and  he  ran  off  with  my  mother,  I've  heard, 
and  they  were  married  against  her  parents'  will. 
I  can  remember  how  handsome  he  was,  with  blue 
eyes  and  a  yellow  beard,  and  how  he  used  to  swear 
at  the  men — I  went  a  voyage  with  him  once  after 
my  mother  died.  I  was  brought  up  at  a  convent 
school  in  Canada,  along  with  the  half  sisters  of  Mr. 

130 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Farrell,  who  owned  my  father's  ship;  and  when  I 
came  out  he  married  me.  I  didn't  love  him;  no, 
I  never  pretended  to;  he  was  too  old.  But  I  mar 
ried  him,  and  I  would  have  been  a  good  enough 
wife,  I  believe,  but  he  died ;  he  died  very  soon  after 
we  were  married.  I  never  said  so,  but  I  was  sorry 
that  he  should  die,  for  he  was  very  good  to  me; 
and  yet  I  was  glad  to  be  free  again.  There,  Mr. 
Easton,  that's  all  about  me." 

Apparently  this  history  had  not  given  his  passion 
the  pause  of  a  single  pulse.  She  was  all  that  she  had 
been  to  him,  or  more;  his  face  showed  that. 

"Well?"  she  asked,  triumphantly. 

"Then  you  don't  forbid  me  to  love  you?"  he 
questioned  in  turn. 

"Oh,  I  ought  to!  You  are  too  generous  and  too 
good  for  me!  No,  no,  you  mustn't  love  me.  I 
should  be  sure  to  bring  harm  upon  you.  It  was  all 
true  about  Mr.  Farrell,  but  it  wasn't  about  my 
father.  In  his  last  years  he  joined  the  church,  and 
he  used  to  pray  in  the  cabin  to  be  forgiven  for 
swearing  on  deck.  So  I'm  not  so  bad  as  I  said,  but 
I'm  not  good  enough  for  you  to  love." 

"Won't  you  let  me  judge  of  that ? "  asked  Easton, 
with  a  smile,  too  happy  to  do  else,  whatever  name 
she  had  given  herself.  He  crouched  again  at  her 
feet,  near  the  base  of  the  flat  rock  on  which  she  had 
sunk,  and  while  he  spoke  she  looked  beamingly  upon 
him.  ' '  I  could  parade  a  few  defects  of  my  own, ' '  he 
said,  "but  just  now  I  am  anxious  to  have  you 
think  all  the  good  of  me  that  you  can;  I  shall  be 
infinitely  far  from  good  enough." 

131 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"No,  no;  don't  do  that.  I  want  you  to  tell  me 
something  very  disgraceful  of  yourself.  If  you 
don't  make  yourself  out  the  blackest  kind  of  charac 
ter,  I  shall  not  let  you  care  for  me." 

"Another  time;  not  now." 

"Yes,  now.     Come." 

Easton  laughed.  "I  can't  think  of  anything 
heinous  enough  for  your  purpose  on  such  short 
notice." 

'  *  Oh,  Mr.  Easton !  Do  you  mean  to  say  that  you 
have  never  done  anything  to  be  ashamed  of?  Have 
you  nothing  on  your  conscience?  What  was  that 
thing  you  said  you  oughtn't  to  have  done  to 
Mr.  Gilbert?" 

The  shadow  of  his  lurking  remorse  fell  over  the 
bliss  of  the  lover's  face,  and  he  gave  a  sigh  like  those 
we  heave  when  we  wake  from  the  forgetfulriess  of 
care  to  the  remembrance  of  it.  ' '  Do  you  really  want 
to  know?" 

"Yes,  I  do,"  answered  Mrs.  Farrell.  "If  you'd 
been  guilty  of  something  really  shabby,  I  should 
have  felt  more  at  home  with  you;  but  no  matter, 
even  if  it  isn't  strictly  disgraceful.  Go  on." 

Easton  did  not  laugh.  "Yes,  I  will  tell  you,"  he 
said;  nevertheless,  he  did  not  tell  her  at  once; 
he  fell  into  a  moody,  unhappy  silence,  from  which 
he  suddenly  started. 

"I  told  you  once  before,"  he  began,  "when  I 
didn't  mean  to  tell  you  anything,  that  Gilbert  and 
I  were  in  the  army  together.  I  knew  nothing  of 
the  business,  and  I  chose  to  enter  the  ranks,  where 
I  should  at  least  do  no  harm  to  the  cause  I  wanted 

132 


MRS.  FARRELL 

to  serve.  Gilbert  was  my  captain;  we  had  not 
known  each  other  before;  but  he  had  known  of  me, 
and  he  made  a  point  of  finding  me  out  among  those 
poor  fellows,  and  in  spite  of  the  gulf  fixed  between 
officers  and  men,  he  made  himself  my  friend  at 
once;  we  were  younger  than  we  are  now — " 

"How  interesting!"  said  Mrs.  Farrell;  "it's 
quite  like  a  love-affair." 

"And  after  our  first  engagement  he  urgently 
recommended  me  and  I  got  a  lieutenant's  com 
mission  in  another  company  of  our  regiment.  The 
next  battle  vacated  the  captaincy  above  me." 

"Do  you  mean  that  the  officer  above  you  was 
killed?" 

"That's  the  way  most  promotions  are  got." 

"Well,  it's  shocking!  I  don't  see  how  you  could 
accept  it.  To  profit  by  the  death  of  others!" 

Easton  winced.  "Oh,"  he  said,  bitterly,  "I  did 
worse  than  that.  Our  general  was  killed,  and  the 
colonel  who  took  his  place  as  brigade  commandant 
had  an  old  feud  with  Gilbert — something  that  had 
begun  before  the  war.  I  don't  know-  whether  he 
planned  to  strike  him  with  my  hand,  when  he  saw 
what  friends  we  were,  or  whether  it  was  a  sudden, 
infernal  inspiration.  But  just  as  we  were  going 
into  action  he  detached  Gilbert  for  staff  duty; 
we  were  fighting  on  toward  the  end  of  the  war  by 
that  time,  and  there  had  been  many  changes  and 
losses,  so  that  I  now  stood  next  to  him  in  seniority, 
and  took  his  place  in  the  regiment.  The  colonel  and 
the  lieutenant-colonel  were  killed,  and  I  brought 
the  remnant  of  the  regiment  out  as  well  as  I  could. 

133 


MRS.  FARRELL 

The  colonel  commanding  had  been  a  truckling  poli 
tician  at  home,  and  he  never  took  his  hands  off  the 
wires  that  work  officeholders." 

Easton  stopped,  and  it  seemed  as  if  he  did  not 
mean  to  go  on,  the  absence  which  he  fell  into 
was  so  long.  He  stared  at  her  with  a  look  of 
pain,  when  recalled  by  an  eager  "Well?"  from 
Mrs.  Farrell. 

"It  all  fell  out  with  such  malignant  fatality  that 
I  don't  think  that  part  of  it  could  have  been 
planned.  But  one  day  Gilbert  and  I  sat  talking 
before  his  tent,  and  an  orderly  came  up  with  an 
official  letter  for  me.  Gilbert  made  a  joke  of  pre 
tending  to  open  it;  I  told  him  to  go  on,  and  then 
he  opened  it  and  looked  at  what  was  in  it.  He 
handed  me  the  inclosure  without  a  word:  it  was 
my  commission  as  colonel;  I  had  been  advanced 
two  steps  over  his  head." 

Mrs.  Farrell  broke  out,  with  a  pitiless  frankness 
that  seemed  to  strike  Easton  like  a  blow,  "I  don't 
see  how  he  could  forgive  you!" 

Easton  passed  his  hand  over  his  face.  "It  was 
a  great  deal  to  forgive ;  if  it  hadn't  seemed  to  make 
us  closer  friends,  I  should  say  it  was  too  much  to 
forgive ;  that  such  a  thing  ought  to  have  separated 
us  at  once  and  forever." 

"Well,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  "I  don't  understand 
how  you  got  over  it.  What  did  you  do?  What  did 
you  say?" 

"I  hardly  know,"  answered  Easton,  gloomily, 
"what  I  did  or  said.  I  wanted  to  tear  the  commis 
sion  to  pieces  and  leave  the  service.  But  Gilbert 

134 


MRS.  FARRELL 

said  I  hadn't  any  right  to  refuse  the  promotion,  I 
hadn't  any  right  to  leave  the  army;  and  he  added 
things  about  my  fitness  for  the  place,  and  my  duty. 
If  I  declined  this  commission,  he  should  not  get  it; 
but  if  he  could  get  it,  what  sort  of  face  could  he 
carry  it  off  with  ?  What  we  must  do  was  not  to  let 
it  make  bad  blood  between  us.  There  was  a  great 
deal  more  talk,  but  it  all  came  to  that  in  the  end. 
He  might  often  have  had  promotion  after  that  in 
many  ways — in  other  regiments  recruiting  or  re 
organizing — but  he  refused  everything;  he  even 
refused  the  brevet  that  was  offered  him  after  the 
war ;  he  said  he  had  some  doubts  about  this,  for  he 
knew  what  I  had  done  to  have  his  case  made  known 
and  justice  done  him.  But  if  I  didn't  mind,  he  said, 
he  would  rather  stay  what  he  was.  He  didn't  go 
into  the  army  for  glory." 

"How  grand!"  said  Mrs.  Farrell. 

"Yes,"  returned  Easton,  sadly,  "it  was  grand 
enough." 

"But,  after  all,"  she  said,  "I  don't  know  why  you 
shouldn't  be  at  peace  about  it  now.  It's  all  over 
and  done  with,  long  ago.  Besides,  you  thought  you 
did  right,  didn't  you? " 

"Yes.  But  in  such  a  case,  one  ought  to  do 
wrong,"  said  Easton,  sadly. 

Mrs.  Farrell  laughed.  "Oh,  well, ' '  said  she,  ' ' you 
did  wrong  to  let  me  surprise  the  weak  place  in  your 
friendship,  and  that  makes  it  just  right.  Why,  Mr. 
Easton!"  she  exclaimed  "are  you  actually  worried 
about  that  silly  business?" 

Easton  did  not  answer. 
135 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"You're  rather  too  sensitive,  I  think." 

"Excuse  me,"  said  Easton.  "A  man  needn't 
be  very  sensitive  to  dislike  to  exploit  himself  at  the 
expense  of  a  friend  who  has  already  forgiven  him 
too  much." 

"But  why  don't  you  tell  him  you  didn't?"  de 
manded  Mrs.  Farrell,  in  amazement.  "Why  don't 
you  tell  him  that  I  got  it  out  of  you — what  little  you 
said — before  you  knew  what  you  were  talking 
about?" 

"Why?  How  could  I  do  that?"  asked  Easton, 
in  as  great  amaze. 

"Easily!"  retorted  Mrs.  Farrell,  with  enthu 
siasm.  "Don't  mind  me!  Why,  if  such  a  man  as 
that  had  liked  me,  and  I  had  offended  him,  there 
isn't  anyone  I  wouldn't  sacrifice,  there  isn't  any 
thing  so  shabby  I  wouldn't  do,  to  get  into  his  good 
graces  again.  Why,  he's  sublime,  don't  you  know. 
Who  would  ever  have  thought  he  was  that  sort  of 
man?" 

Easton  fell  into  a  somber  reverie  from  which 
even  her  presence  could  not  save  him;  for  the 
wretched  moment  he  forgot  her  presence,  and  her 
voice  seemed  to  be  coming  from  a  long  way  off  as 
she  bent  down  her  face  and  peered  into  his  with  a 
sidelong,  mock-serious  glance. 

"Don't  let  me  intrude  upon  your  thoughts,  Mr. 
Easton.  I  can  wait  till  you're  quite  at  leisure  for 
my  answer." 

"Your  answer?" 

"Yes.  Or  no,  it  was  you  who  wanted  an  answer 
— about  something,  wasn't  it?  Oh,  Mr.  Easton! 

136 


MRS.  FARRELL 

'Was  ever  woman  in  such  humor  wooed? 
Was  ever  woman  in  such  humor  won? ' 

It's  a  good  thing  I'm  not  proud.  Come,  begin  over 
again.  I'm  quite  ready  to  be  persuaded  that  you're 
still  perishing  of  unrequited  affection  for  me." 

Easton  gave  a  sigh  of  torment.  She  dropped  her 
mocking  manner  and  said  with  an  earnest  air,  "  You 
are  thinking  of  the  matter  too  morbidly.  It  isn't 
any  such  hopeless  affair.  You  must  speak  to  Mr. 
Gilbert  and  show  him  that  no  wrong  was  meant, 
and  if  you  sacrifice  yourself  from  any  foolish  idea 
of  sparing  me,  I  shall  never  forgive  you.  He  won't 
care  for  what  I've  done  to  make  trouble;  he  hates 
me,  anyway;  and  then  you  can  both  go  away  as 
good  as  new — and  forget  me." 

"I  shall  never  go  away,"  said  Easton,  "till  you 
send  me,  and  I  shall  never  forget  you  while  I  live." 

"No?  I  thought  you  had  forgotten  me  just  now. 
Well,  you  had  better  go  away;  I  don't  send  you,  but 
you  had  better  go;  and  you  had  better  forget  me. 
Your  fortnight  is  just  up  to-day :  better  go  to-day. 
Come,  here  are  both  my  hands  for  good-by.  When 
you've  put  two  hundred  miles  between  us,  perhaps 
you  can  think  more  clearly  about  it  all." 

He  took  her  hands,  which  she  held  out  to  him, 
smiling,  and  bowed  his  lips  upon  them  in  the  utter 
surrender  of  his  love. 

"Why,  you  are  really  in  my  hands,"  she  mur 
mured.  A  light  of  triumph  burned  in  her  dark 
eyes,  but  one  could  not  have  said  that  as  a  woman 
she  had  not  a  right  to  the  few  and  fleeting  triumphs 
that  love  gives  her  sex,  on  which  it  lays  so  many 

137 


MRS.  FARRELL 

heavy  burdens.  "Then,"  she  said,  "you  must  do 
as  I  bid  you.  Come,  let  me  go,  now ;"  and  she  with 
drew  her  hands  and  rose  to  her  feet,  and  flung  her 
shawl  over  her  arm.  "You  must  not  talk  of  liking 
me,  any  more,  till  you  are  friends  with  Gilbert 
again.  You  may  make  up  with  him  how  and  when 
you  will,  but  you  must  not  speak  to  me  till  you  tell 
me  you  are  reconciled.  I  can't  forgive  myself  till 
I  know  that  youVe  made  up  at  my  expense.  Tell 
him  that  it  piqued  and  irritated  me  to  see  you  such 
friends,  and  that  I  could  not  rest  till  I  had  got  a 
clew  to  your  secret;  that  I  didn't  really  mean  any 
harm;  but  that  I  was  altogether  to  blame.  Will 
you  obey?" 

"No!"  said  Easton,  so  fiercely  that  Mrs.  Farrell 
started  with  a  sudden  shock  of  panic  that  left  no 
trace  of  persiflage  in  her  tone,  while  she  walked 
humbly  before  him  with  downcast  head.  How 
could  he  be  angry  with  her?  His  whole  heart 
yearned  upon  her  as  they  moved  on  through  the 
hollow,  and  came  from  its  gloom  at  last  upon  the 
open  meadow.  "I  didn't  mean  to  offend  you,"  she 
added,  then.  "I  was  only  trying  to  show  you  how 
much  in  earnest  I  was  about  having  you  and  Gil 
bert  friends  again;  I  couldn't  be  happy  if  I  thought 
I  had  hurt  your  feelings." 

"I  will  obey  you,"  said  Easton,  sadly. 

"You  will  make  up  with  him?"  she  asked. 

"If  he  will  let  me.    God  knows  I  want  to  do  it." 

"Then  you  may  spare  me  all  you  like.  You're 
not  angry  now?" 

"Only  with  my  self." 

138 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"And  you're  going  to  be  real  patient  with  me, 
about — that  little  answer?" 

"As  patient  as  you  can  ask." 

"Because,"  she  explained,  "we  have  scarcely  the 
advantage  of  each  other's  acquaintance  as  yet"; 
and  added,  "I  would  rather  you  wouldn't  go  back 
to  the  farm  with  me,  to-day.  I'm  afraid,"  she  said, 
glancing  at  him,  "that  you'll  look  as  if  you  had 
been  saying  something.  Those  women  have  got 
such  sharp  eyes!  Should  you  care  if  you  left  me 
at  the  corner  of  the  lane  and  let  me  walk  to  the 
house  alone?  Shouldn't  you,  really?  And  you 
don't  think  it's  asking  too  much?" 

"It  would  be  too  much  if  anyone  else  asked  me 
to  leave  you  sooner  than  I  must.  But  it's  for  you 
to  command." 

"I  don't  command,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell.  Just 
then  they  came  upon  a  rise  in  the  meadow,  which 
showed  the  road  and  Rachel  Woodward  walking 
down  toward  the  red  schoolhouse.  "Oh,  how 
lucky!"  cried  Mrs.  Farrell.  "Rachel,  Rachel!"  she 
called,  "wait!"  and  Rachel  stopped  till  they  joined 
her.  "I  want  to  go  with  you  to  the  schoolhouse. 
May  Mr.  Easton  come,  too?"  she  asked,  with  a 
glance  at  him. 

"I  won't  put  Miss  Woodward  to  the  pain  of 
refusing.  I  think  I  shall  find  my  friend  Gilbert  at 
the  hotel,  about  this  time,  and  I  want  to  see  him." 

Mrs.  Farrell  rewarded  his  surprising  duplicity 
with  a  brave,  strong  clasp  of  the  hand,  said  heartily, 
"Good-by,"  and  turned  away  with  Rachel,  while  he 
walked  slowly,  with  his  head  down,  in  the  other 

139 


MRS.  FARRELL 

direction.  She  had  not  gone  far  when  she  stopped 
and  looked  back  at  him  over  her  shoulder,  holding 
her  dress  out  of  the  dust  with  one  hand;  but  he 
did  not  turn  to  look  at  her,  and  presently  a  down 
ward  slope  of  the  road  hid  him. 

"He's  handsome  enough,  I  should  hope,"  said 
Mrs.  Farrell,  only  half  to  Rachel,  who  made  no 
comment,  and  Mrs.  Farrell  asked,  "What  have  you 
been  doing,  all  the  week?  I've  scarcely  had  a 
chance  to  speak  to  you." 

"No,"  said  Rachel.  "I  don't  like  walking  in  the 
woods  so  much  as  you  do,  and  I  haven't  time  for  it." 

"Rachel!"  cried  Mrs.  Farrell,  with  affected  stern 
ness,  "do  you  mean  anything  personal?  I  won't 
have  it,  ma'am.  Withdraw  those  vile  insinuations. 
Do  you  wish  to  imply  that  I  have  gone  walking  in 
the  woods  with  Mr.  Easton?  How  very  unkind  of 
you,  Rachel!  But  I  forgive  you;  this  sarcastic 
habit  of  yours  is  one  of  the  eccentricities  of  genius. 
Here  we  are  at  the  little  sanctuary  itself.  How 
nicely  it  will  read  in  the  newspapers  when  you 
exhibit  your  first  cattle-piece  in  Boston: 

"During  the  summer,  the  fair  artist,  having  dismissed  her 
little  flock  of  pupils,  consecrated  the  red  schoolhouse  at  the 
corner  of  the  road  to  the  labors  of  her  genius,  devoting  to 
them  such  moments  as  she  could  steal  from  household  cares 
and  the  demands  of  her  mother's  boarders,  who  little  dreamt 
with  what  visions  of  beauty  and  fame  she  glorified  the  dim 
old  farmhouse  kitchen,  albeit  she  was  familiarly  known  among 
them  as  the  Rosa  Bonheur  of  West  Pekin,  and  they  duly 
reverenced  her  God-given  talent. 

There!"  triumphed  Mrs.  Farrell,  falling  into  her 
natural  tone  from  that  in  which  she  had  seemed  to 

140 


MRS.  FARRELL 

read  these  sentences  aloud,  " that's  from  'a  lady 
correspondent,'  and  anybody  could  tell  that  Mrs. 
Stevenson  wrote  it.  Now,  will  you  say  anything 
about  my  walking  with  Mr.  Easton?  Rachel!"  she 
exclaimed,  as  the  girl  answered  nothing,  "have  I 
trodden  on  some  of  your  outlying  sensibilities? 
Oh,  I'm  ever  so  sorry!"  and  she  fell  upon  her  like  a 
remorseful  wolf  and  devoured  her  with  kisses. 
"There,  I  forgive  you  again.  I've  got  my  hand  in 
— been  forgiving  Mr.  Easton  the  whole  afternoon." 

Rachel  made  no  response,  but  when  Mrs.  Farrell 
had  sufficiently  wreaked  her  regret  upon  her  she 
felt  in  her  pocket  for  the  schoolhouse  key.  "Why, 
I've  come  without  it!"  she  exclaimed,  in  dismay. 

"Splendid!"  returned  Mrs.  Farrell;  "that  will 
oblige  us  to  break  in,  and  I've  always  had  an 
ungratified  taste  for  burglary.  It  won't  do  for  us  to 
be  seen  getting  in  at  the  front  window;  it  wouldn't 
be  professional;  we  must  go  round  to  the  back," 
she  said,  leading  the  way,  while  Rachel  followed. 

"It's  fastened  with  a  stick  from  the  frame  to  the 
top  of  the  lower  sash,  and  it's  no  use  trying  to  get 
in,"  said  the  girl. 

"Oh,  isn't  it!"  retorted  Mrs.  Farrell.  "Have 
you  brought  your  knife?" 

She  took  the  knife,  and  half  opened  the  blade, 
when  it  snapped  to  again,  and  she  flung  it  away 
with  a  shriek  and  looked  to  see  if  it  had  cut  her 
finger.  "I'm  still  in  one  piece,  I 'm  thankful  to  say, ' ' 
she  said,  presently;  "but  you  open  the  knife, 
Rachel."  She  took  it  again,  and,  sliding  the  blade 
vertically  between  the  upper  and  lower  sash,  sent 

141 


MRS.  FARRELL 

the  fastening  flying  out  upon  the  floor.  "That's 
a  little  trick  I  read  of,  once,"  she  said,  handing  the 
open  knife  back  to  Rachel,  and  throwing  up  the 
sash. 

The  next  moment  she  gave  her  two  strong  arms 
to  Rachel  and  helped  her  in;  and  then  she  went 
straight  to  the  teacher's  desk,  took  out  a  portfolio, 
and  pinned  about  the  walls  the  sketches  that  she 
found  in  it,  Rachel  making  no  resistance. 

"Why  it  is — quite  like  a  studio,  Rachel,"  she  said, 
and  made  a  show  of  conscientiously  examining  each 
of  the  sketches  in  turn. 

At  last  she  came  to  one  from  which  she  abruptly 
turned  with  the  tragic  appeal  of  '  *  Rachel ! "  It  was 
the  first  of  a  series  of  three,  and  it  represented  Mrs. 
Farrell  seated  at  the  foot  of  a  rock  and  turning  an 
anxious  face  to  confront  Blossom's  visage  thrust 
through  the  birch-trees,  with  a  mildly  humorous 
gleam  in  her  great  calm  eyes,  as  if  she  relished  the 
notion  of  having  been  mistaken  for  a  man.  The 
next  represented  Blossom  driven  from  her  shelter, 
and  at  a  few  paces  distant  indignantly  regarding 
Gilbert  and  Easton,  who  had  just  appeared,  while 
Mrs.  Farrell  and  Rachel  were  shown  sailing  down 
the  meadow  with  extravagant  swiftness.  The  third 
was  Mrs.  Farrell  confronting  Easton,  to  whom  she 
had  returned  to  claim  her  book;  Blossom  looked  on 
with  grave  surprise.  The  cow's  supposed  thoughts, 
and  feelings  were  alone  suggested;  the  figures  of 
the  men  were  caricatures,  and  the  fashionableness 
and  characteristic  beauty  of  Mrs.  Farrell  were 
extremely  burlesqued. 

142 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Oh,  this  is  how  you  spend  your  time,  is  it?"  she 
asked. 

"I  thought  I  would  have  something  ready  to  ex 
hibit  if  I  went  to  Boston  this  winter,"  said  Rachel, 
very  demurely.  "Do  you  like  the  subjects?" 

"This  circumscribes  me  fearfully,"  said  Mrs. 
Farrell,  not  heeding  the  question.  "I  can  never 
snub  you  any  more,  Rachel.  From  this  moment 
I'm  afraid  of  you.  I'm  not  hurt  or  angry;  I'm 
frightened.  Aren't  they  splendid?"  she  asked, 
joyously,  of  Rachel,  as  if  they  were  two  indifferent 
connoisseurs  of  the  work.  ' '  You've  got  me  exactly ; 
and  Blossom,  why,  she  looks  perfectly  shocked. 
Anybody  can  see  what  an  unsophisticated  cow  she 
is;  you're  a  country  cow,  Blossom,  or  you  wouldn't 
be  astonished  at  such  an  innocent  little  maneuver 
as  that.  Your  men  are  not  so  good  as  your  cows  and 
women,  Rachel.  Mr.  Easton  isn't  such  a  stick  as 
that;  you  know  he  isn't.  Oh,  Rachel,"  said  Mrs. 
Farrell,  sinking  upon  a  seat  behind  a  school  desk 
and  leaning  her  elbow  on  it,  chin  in  hand,  while  she 
brooded  on  the  last  sketch  with  effective  eyes,  "how 
awfully  embarrassing  men  are!  Here  is  Mr. 
Easton,  for  example,  who  has  known  me  a  week — 
a  week  but  barely  two — and  guess  what  he's  been 
saying  to  me  this  afternoon ! ' '  She  changed  her  pos 
ture  and  sat  with  her  hands  in  her  lap,  regarding 
Rachel  as  one  does  the  person  whom  one  has  posed 
with  a  conundrum. 

"Why,  I  don't  know,"  said  Rachel,  in  a  voice 
as  faint  as  the  blush  on  her  cheek. 

"Not,"  resumed  Mrs.  Farrell,  "that  he  seems  to 
143 


MRS.  FARRELL 

consider  it  at  all  precipitate!  I've  had  to  fight  it 
off  ever  since  last  Sunday;  I've  no  doubt  he  thinks 
he's  waited  a  proper  time,  as  they  say  of  widowers. 
Why,  Rachel,  he's  been  making  love  to  me,  that's 
what." 

Rachel  hung  down  her  head  a  little,  as  if  the  con 
fidence  scared  her,  and  played  with  a  corner  of  some 
paper  on  the  desk  before  her,  but  she  did  not  say 
anything.  She  was  not  apparently  surprised,  but 
silenced. 

"Well,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  after  a  while,  "haven't 
you  any  observations  to  offer,  Rachel?  What 
should  you  do  to  him  if  you  were  in  my  place? 
Come!" 

"I  should  think  you  would  know,"  faltered  the 
girl,  "if  you  liked  him." 

"Like  him?  Oh,  don't  I  like  a  blond,  regular- 
featured  young  man  of  good  mind  and  independent 
property,  and  no  more  pretense  than — well,  say  pie, 
for  instance!  But  that  isn't  the  question.  The 
question  is  whether  I  ought  to  marry  such  a  man. 
Yes,  I  really  think  I  have  a  scruple  or  two,  on  this 
point.  I  do  love  him — sort  of.  But,  oh  dear  me! 
I  don't  suppose  I  love  him  rightly,  or  enough  of  it. 
I  could  imagine  myself  doing  it.  I  can  see  myself," 
said  Mrs.  Farrell,  half -closing  her  eyes  as  if  to  exam 
ine  the  scene  critically,  "in  some  moods  that  I  could 
love  him  with  unutterable  devotion  in.  But  I 
should  have  to  have  something  tremendous  to  draw 
me  out;  a  ten-horse-power  calamity;  and  then 
perhaps  I  shouldn't  stay  drawn  out.  It  brings  the 
tears  into  my  eyes  to  think  how,  if  he  had  lost  the 

144 


MRS.  FARRELL 

use  of  his  limbs,  say,  and  we  were  dreadfully  poor, 
I  would  slave  myself  to  the  bone  for  his  sake — for 
about  ten  minutes!  But  a  saint,  a  hero  in  perfect 
repair,  with  plenty  of  money,  it's  quite  another 
thing." 

"If  you  were  ever  in  earnest,  Mrs.  Farrell,"  said 
Rachel,  sternly,  "you  ought  to  be  afraid  to  talk  as 
you  do." 

"Why,  so  I  am,  aunty — so  I  am,"  retorted  Mrs. 
Farrell,  incorrigibly.  "It  sends  the  cold  chills  over 
me  to  talk  as  I  do,  but  I  can't  help  it.  Don't  you 
suppose  I  know  how  nice  Mr.  Easton  is  ?  I  do.  He 
is  the  very  soul  of  truth  and  honor  and  all  upright 
ness.  He  is  the  noblest  and  best  man  in  the  world. 
But  what  could  I  do  with  him,  or  he  with  me?  No, 
ma'am,  it  isn't  such  a  simple  affair  as  liking  or  not 
liking.  This  is  a  case  of  conscience,  I'd  have  you  to 
know,  such  as  doesn't  often  turn  up  in  West  Pekin." 

Mrs.  Farrell  rose  and  made  some  tragic  paces 
across  the  schoolroom  floor  to  where  the  girl  sat, 
and  fell  on  her  knees  before  her,  having  with  a 
great  show  of  neatness  arranged  a  bit  of  paper  to 
kneel  upon.  She  took  Rachel's  hands  in  her  own, 
and  with  uplifted  face  implored,  "Advise  me,  my 
friend,"  which  rendered  the  girl  helpless  with 
laughter. 

' '  Oh,  for  shame,  for  shame,  Mrs.  Farrell ! '  *  she  said, 
when  she  could  get  breath;  "you  make  fun  of 
everything." 

"No,  no,  Rachel,  I  don't!  I  never  made  fun  of 
Mr.  Easton.  Would  you  like  to  know  how  he  be 
haved  when  he  made  love  to  me?  No?  Well,  you 
10  145 


MRS.  FARRELL 

shall.  Now,  you  are  the  fatally  beautiful  Mrs. 
Farrell,  and  you're  sitting  on  a  rock  in  the  hollow 
near  the  sugar  house.  Your  head  is  slightly  down 
cast,  so — yes,  very  good — and  you  are  twiddling 
the  handle  of  your  sun  umbrella  and  poking  the 
point  of  it  into  the  dirt.  Mr.  Easton  is  standing 
before  you  with  his  arms  folded  thus — ahem! — 
waiting  life  or  death  at  your  hands."  She  folded 
her  arms,  and  gave  that  intensely  feminine  interpre 
tation  of  a  man's  port  and  style  which  is  always  so 
delicious.  "'Oh,  Mr.  Easton/  you  are  faltering,  'I 
am  afraid  that  you  have  deceived  yourself  in  me; 
I  am  indeed.  I  am  not  at  all  the  party  you  think 
you  love.  I  was — listen! — I  was  changed  at  nurse. 
She  whom  you  love,  the  real  Mrs.  Farrell,  is  my 
twin  sister,  and  the  world  knows  her  as — Rachel 
Woodward! '" 

Rachel  had  been  struggling  to  release  herself 
from  a  position  so  scandalous;  but  Mrs.  Farrell, 
who  had  never  risen  from  her  knees,  had  securely 
hemmed  her  in.  At  the  climax  of  the  burlesque 
the  girl  flung  herself  back  and  gave  way  to  a  rush 
of  sobs  and  tears.  Mrs.  Farrell  attempted  to  throw 
her  arms  about  her  and  console  her,  but  Rachel 
shrank  resolutely  aside.  "Don't  touch  me!"  she 
cried,  when  she  could  speak.  "It's  horrible!  You 
have  no  pity;  you  have  no  heart!  You  have  no 
peace  of  yourself,  and  you  are  never  at  rest  unless 
you  are  tormenting  some  one  else.  I  wish  you 
would  go  away  from  our  house  and  never  come 
back  again!" 

Mrs.  Farrell  rose  from  her  knees,  all  her  jesting 
146 


MRS.  FARRELL 

washed  away,  for  that  moment,  at  least,  by  this 
torrent  of  feeling  from  a  source  habitually  locked 
under  an  icy  discipline. 

"Rachel,"  she  said,  "do  you  really  hate  me?" 

"No,"  said  the  girl,  fiercely.  "If  I  hated  you  I 
could  bear  it!  Nothing  is  sacred  to  you.  You 
only  care  for  yourself  and  your  own  pleasure,  and 
you  don't  care  how  you  make  others  suffer,  so  you 
please  yourself." 

"Yes,  I  do,  Rachel,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  humbly. 
"I  know  I'm  selfish.  But  I  do  care  for  you,  and 
I'm  very,  very  sorry  that  I've  wounded  you.  You 
needn't  forgive  me;  I  don't  deserve  it,  but  I'm 
sorry  all  the  same." 

The  afternoon  was  waning  when  they  came  in  to  the 
schoolhouse,  and  now  a  level  ray  of  the  setting  sun 
struck  across  Rachel's  head,  fallen  on  the  desk  be 
fore  her,  and  illumined  Mrs.  Farrell 's stricken  beauty. 
They  sat  there  till  after  the  sunset  had  faded  away. 
Then  Mrs.  Farrell  went  softly  about  the  room, 
taking  down-  the  sketches,  which  she  brought  and 
laid  before  Rachel.  The  girl  lifted  her  head  and 
took  out  the  three  sketches  in  which  Mrs.  Farrell 
figured,  and,  tearing  them  in  pieces,  thrust  them 
into  the  stove  which  stood,  red  with  rust,  in  the 
middle  of  the  room.  She  would  not  let  Mrs.  Far 
rell  help  her  out  of  the  window,  and  that  lady 
followed  her  meekly  homeward  when  they  left  the 
schoolhouse. 

Before  she  slept  she  came  and  knocked  at  Mrs. 
Farrell's  door,  and  entered  in  response  to  her  cheer 
ful  "Come  in,  come  in!" 


MRS.  FARRELL 

''I'm  awfully  glad  to  see  you,  Rachel,'*  said  Mrs. 
Farrell,  who  was  lying  on  her  lounge,  reading 
Shakespeare.  "Do  sit  down  and  visit;"  and  she 
shut  her  book  and  rose  upon  her  elbow. 

"No,"  said  Rachel,  stiffly,  as  she  stood  shading 
with  one  hand  the  kerosene  lamp  she  held  in  the 
other,  "I  have  come  to  say  that  I  think  I  have 
treated  you  badly ;  for  whatever  you  did,  I  had  no 
right  to  say  the  things  to  you  that  I  said.  I— 

"Oh,  never  mind  about  that,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell. 
' '  You're  all  right.  I  dare  say  it  was  all  true  enough. 
But  what  I  can't  understand  is  this,  Rachel:  when 
I've  been  doing  anything  wrong,  I'm  as  sorry  as 
can  be,  and  I  have  no  rest  till  I  go  off  and  make  a 
glib  apology.  That's  as  it  should  be,  of  course,  but 
it  isn't  like  your  repentance.  You've  been  abusing 
me,  frightfully,  and  you  come  here  and  fire  your 
regrets  into  the  air,  so  to  speak;  you  don't  seem  to 
care  whether  they  hit  me  or  not;  you  discharge 
'em,  and  there  you  are  all  nicely,  with  a  perfectly 
clean  conscience.  Well  now,  you  know,  when  I 
apologize  to  any  one,  I  like  to  see  the  apology  hit 
them;  I  like  to  see  them  writhe  and  quiver  under 
it,  and  go  down  before  it,  and  I  feel  a  good  deal 
wickeder  after  I've  repented  than  I  did  before. 
What  do  you  suppose  is  the  reason?" 

Rachel  made  no  reply,  and  Mrs.  Farrell  seemed 
not  to  have  expected  any.  She  went  on:  "Well, 
now,  I'll  tell  you  what  I  think  it  is;  I  think  it's 
sense  of  duty.  I'm  sorry  when  I'm  sorry  because 
it's  so  very  uncomfortable  to  think  of  people 
suffering;  it's  like  stepping  on  something  that 

148 


MRS.   FARRELL 

squirms;  but  when  you're  sorry,  it's  because  you've 
done  wrong.  There!  Now  I'm  going  to  keep  that 
distinction  clearly  in  mind,  and  go  in  for  a  sense  of 
duty — at  the  earliest  opportunity." 

Mrs.  Farrell  fell  back  upon  her  lounge  with  an 
air  of  refreshment  and  relief,  which  nobody  could 
resist,  and  Rachel  laughed  a  reluctant,  protesting 
laugh,  while  the  other  kept  a  serious  face. 

"Crimps,  I  suppose,"  she  mused,  aloud,  "would 
be  very  unbecoming  to  a  person  who  was  going  in 
for  a  sense  of  duty,  and  I  must  give  them  up.  I 
ought  to  have  my  hair  brushed  perfectly  flat  in 
front,  and  I  shall  come  down  with  it  so  to  break 
fast.  I  wonder  how  I  shall  look?"  She  went  to 
the  bureau,  took  a  brush,  and  smoothed  down  the 
loose  hair  above  her  forehead;  then  holding  it  on 
either  side  with  her  hands  to  keep  it  down  she 
glanced  into  the  mirror.  "Oh,  oh,  oh!"  she  cried 
out  with  a^great  laugh,  ' '  I  look  slyer  than  anything 
in  the  world!  No!  A  sense  of  duty  will  never  do 
for  me.  I  must  chance  it  with  unregenerate  nature. 
But  you  can't  say  after  this  that  I  didn't  try  to  be 
good,  can  you,  Rachel?"  She  put  her  hand  on 
Rachel's  cheek  and  pressed  the  girl's  head  against 
her  breast,  while  she  looked  down  into  her  clear 
eyes.  "I  do  love  you,  Rachel,  and  I'm  glad  you 
felt  sorry  for  having  flown  out  at  me.  I  didn't 
mean  anything — I  didn't  indeed;"  and  she  ten 
derly  kissed  Rachel  good  night. 


Chapter  IX 

IT  had  been  rather  too  warm  on  Saturday.  On 
Sunday  the  breeze  that  draws  across  Wood 
ward  farm  almost  all  summer  long,  from  over 
the  shoulder  of  Scatticong,  had  fallen,  and  the 
leaves  of  the  maples  along  the  roadside  and  in  the 
grove  beyond  the  meadow  hung  still  as  in  a  picture; 
the  old  Lombardy  poplars  at  the  gate  shook  with 
a  faint,  nervous  agitation.  Up  the  valley  came  the 
vast  bath  of  the  heat,  which  inundated  the  con 
tinent  and  made  that  day  memorable  for  suffering 
and  sudden  death.  In  the  cities  there  were  sun 
strokes  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning;  some  who 
kept  withindoors  perished  from  exhaustion  when 
the  sun's  fury  was  spent.  The  day  was  famous  for 
the  heat  by  the  seashore,  where  the  glare  from  the 
smooth  levels  of  the  salt  seemed  to  turn  the  air  to 
flame;  at  the  great  mountain  resorts,  the  summer 
guests,  sweltering  among  the  'breathless  tops  and 
valleys,  longed  for  the  sea. 

East  on  lay  awake  all  night,  and  at  dawn  dressed 
and  watched  the  morning  gray  turn  to  clear  rose, 
and  heard  the  multitude  of  the  birds  sing  as  if  it 
were  still  June;  then  he  lay  down  in  his  clothes 
again,  and,  meaning  to  wait  till  he  could  go  out  and 
sit  in  the  freshness  of  the  daybreak,  fell  asleep. 

150 


MRS.   FARRELL 

When  he  woke,  the  sun  was  high  in  his  window  and 
the  room  was  full  of  a  sickly  heat.  He  somehow 
thought  Gilbert  had  come  back,  but  he  saw,  by  a 
glance  through  the  door  standing  ajar,  that  his 
room  was  yet  empty. 

After  breakfast,  which  could  be  only  a  formality 
on  such  a  morning,  even  for  a  man  not  in  love,  he 
went  out  on  the  gallery  of  the  hotel,  and,  as  he  had 
done  the  first  Sunday,  watched  the  people  going  to 
church.  The  village  folk  came  as  usual,  but  the 
bell  brought  few  of  the  farmers  and  their  wives. 
The  meadows  were  veiled  in  a  thin,  quivering  haze 
of  heat ;  far  off,  the  hilltops  seemed  to  throb  against 
the  sky. 

Easton  saw  the  Woodwards  drive  up  to  the 
church;  but  Mrs.  Farrell  was  not  with  them.  He 
had  not  meant  to  go,  even  if  she  had  come;  yet  it 
was  a  disappointment  not  to  see  her  come.  He  went 
indoors  and  looked  listlessly  about  the  office,  which 
had  once  been  a  barroom,  and  could  not  have  been 
so  dreary  in  its  wicked  days  as  now.  Its  manners 
had  not  improved  with  its  morals.  It  was  stained 
with  volleys  adventurously  launched  in  the  direction 
of  a  spittoon,  it  smelled  of  horse  and  hostler,  and 
it  was  as  dull  as  a  water  cooler,  a  hotel  register,  a 
fragment  of  circus  bill,  a  time-table  of  the  Pekin  & 
Scatticong  Railroad,  can  make  a  place.  Easton 
went  and  sat  upon  the  gallery  till  the  people  came 
out  of  church  and  dispersed;  then  he  abruptly 
left  the  porch  and  struck  out  through  the  heat, 
across  the  graveyard  and  along  the  top  of  a  bare 
ridge  of  pasture,  toward  the  woods  that  lay  be- 


MRS.  FARRELL 

tween  the  village  and  Woodward  farm.  He  could 
think  of  no  other  place  to  pass  the  time  but  that 
which  had  yesterday  heard  him  say  he  loved  her. 
The  whole  affair  had  taken  a  dozen  different  phases 
during  the  night,  as  he  turned  from  side  to  side  in 
his  sleeplessness.  Once  he  had  even  beheld  her  in 
that  character  of  arch-flirt  in  which  Gilbert  had 
denounced  her.  He  saw  a  reckless  design  in  what 
she  had  done,  a  willful  purpose  to  test  her  power 
upon  them  both.  But  for  the  instant  that  this 
doubt  lasted  he  did  not  cease  to  love  her,  to  feel  her 
incomparable  charm.  However  she  had  wronged 
them,  he  could  not  do  otherwise  than  remain  true 
to  her  against  every  consequence.  His  love,  which 
had  seemed  to  spring  into  full  life  at  the  first  sight 
of  her,  had  been  poisoned  from  the  very  beginning 
by  the  suspicion  of  others,  and  every  day  since  then 
she  had  said  or  done  things  that  were  capable  of 
being  taken  in  the  sense  of  consciously  insolent 
caprice;  yet  all  her  audacity  might  be  innocent  in 
the  very  measure  of  its  excess;  and  there  was 
mixed  with  that  potential  slight  toward  her  in  his 
heart  such  tenderness  and  sweet  delight,  such  joy 
in  her  beauty,  grace,  and  courage,  that  every  at 
tempt  to  analyze  her  acts  or  motives  ended  in  a 
rapturous  imagination  of  her  consent  to  be  loved  by 
him.  He  could  not  help  feeling  that  she  had  not 
discouraged  him;  he  excused  the  delay  which  she 
had  imposed;  how,  when  he  thought  of  the  con 
ditions  which  she  had  made,  could  he  doubt  her 
goodness  or  fail  to  know  her  regret?  He  went, 
thinking,  on  toward  the  spot  he  was  seeking,  and 

152 


MRS.  FARRELL 

sometimes  he  walked  very  swiftly  and  sometimes 
he  found  he  had  stopped  stock  still,  under  the 
blazing  sun,  in  attitudes  of  perplexity  and  musing. 
When  at  last  he  entered  the  dell,  from  the  field  on 
which  they  had  yesterday  emerged,  drops  of  per 
spiration  rolled  down  his  forehead,  and  the  shadow 
of  the  place  had  a  sultriness  of  its  own,  in  which 
his  breath  came  almost  as  faintly  as  in  the  open 
sunshine  of  the  meadows.  He  went  toward  the 
pool  where  the  cattle  drank,  and  bathed  his  face; 
then,  seeking  out  that  shelf  of  rock  where  she  had 
sat,  he  laid  himself  down  on  the  ledge  below  it  and 
fondly  strove  to  make  her  seem  still  there. 

He  fell  into  a  deep  reverie,  in  which  he  was  at 
first  sensible  of  a  great  fatigue,  and  then  of  a  light 
ness  and  ease  of  heart  such  as  he  had  not  felt  for 
the  whole  week  past.  While  he  lay  in  this  tran 
quillity,  he  seemed  to  see  Gilbert  and  Mrs.  Farrell 
come  laughing  and  talking  up  the  glen  together: 
Gilbert  was  dressed  in  his  suit  of  white  flannel, 
but  she  wore  a  gown  of  dark  crimson  silk,  stiff  with 
its  rich  texture,  and  trailing  after  her  on  the  gray 
rocks  and  over  the  green  ferns.  Her  head  was 
bare,  and  in  the  dark  folds  of  her  hair  was  wound  a 
string  of  what  seemed  red  stones  at  first,  like  gar 
nets  in  color,  but  proved,  as  she  came  nearer,  to 
be  the  translucent  berries  of  a  poisonous  vine. 
When  she  saw  that  they  had  caught  his  eye,  she 
took  Gilbert  by  the  hand  and  called  out  to  Easton, 
"Now  you  can't  escape.  He's  going  to  make  up 
with  you  whether  you  will  or  no.  I've  told  him 
everything  and  he  understands.  Isn't  it  so — 

153 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Major?"  They  looked  at  each  other,  and,  with 
a  swift,  significant  glance  at  Easton,  burst  into  a 
laugh,  which  afflicted  him  with  inexpressible  shame 
and  pain.  He  shuddered  as  Gilbert  took  him  in  his 
arms  in  token  of  reconciliation,  and  then  he  found 
himself  in  a  clutch  from  which  he  could  not  escape. 
Mrs.  Farrell  had  vanished,  but  "Easton,  Easton!" 
he  heard  the  voice  of  Gilbert  saying,  "what's  the 
matter?"  And  opening  his  eyes,  he  found  his 
friend  kneeling  over  him  and  looking  anxiously 
into  his  face. 

"I've  been  asleep,  haven't  I?"  he  asked,  stu 
pidly. 

"Yes,  and  going  it  on  rather  a  high-stepping 
nightmare,"  answered  Gilbert,  with  his  old  smile. 
"Better  have  a  little  dip  at  the  brook;"  and  Easton 
mechanically  obeyed.  He  drew  out  his  handker 
chief  to  dry  his  face,  and  knew  by  the  perfume  it 
shed  that  it  was  the  handkerchief  Mrs.  Farrell  had 
restored.  His  heart  somehow  ached  as  he  inhaled 
its  fragrance,  and  he  felt  the  old  barrier,  which  had 
not  existed  for  the  moment,  re-established  between 
himself  and  Gilbert.  He  came  and  sat  down  con 
strainedly  where  he  had  been  lying. 

"I  hope  you  won't  be  the  worse,  my  dear  fellow, 
for  your  little  nap,"  said  Gilbert.  "Fortunately, 
there  isn't  a  spot  in  the  universe  where  a  man  could 
take  cold  to-day." 

"I  think  I'm  all  right,"  said  Easton,  and  he 
looked  down,  to  avoid  Gilbert's  eyes. 

Gilbert  continued  to  gaze  at  him  with  the  amused 
smile  of  patronage  which  people  wear  at  the  sight 


MRS.  FARRELL 

of  one  not  yet  wholly  emerged  from  the  mist  of 
dreams,  and  waited  for  a  while  before  he  spoke 
again.  Then  he  said,  "Easton,  if  you're  perfectly 
awake,  I  wish  you'd  hear  me  say  what  a  very  ex 
traordinary  kind  of  ass  I  think  I've  been  for  the 
past  week  or  so." 

Easton  looked  up,  and  there  was  his  friend  hold 
ing  out  his  hand  to  him  and  gazing  at  him  with 
shining  eyes.  He  could  not  say  anything,  but  he 
took  the  hand  and  pressed  it  as  he  had  that  day 
when  they  had  pledged  each  other  not  to  let  harm 
come  between  them. 

"Confound  it!"  Gilbert  went  on,  "I  knew  all 
the  time  that  I  was  wrong,  but  I  had  to  get  away 
before  I  could  face  the  thing  and  fairly  look  it  out 
of  countenance." 

"Did  you  have  a  good  time?"  asked  Easton,  his 
voice  husky  with  the  emotion  to  which  he  refused 
sentimental  utterance. 

"Glorious!  But  I  missed  you  awfully,  old  fellow 
— after  I'd  made  it  all  right  with  you — and  I  wish 
you  had  been  with  me.  The  trout  bit  like  fish 
that  had  nothing  on  their  consciences;  and  there 
was  an  old  couple  over  there  near  the  lake  who  sup 
plied  me  with  bread  and  milk;  they  could  have  gone 
into  your  Annals  just  as  they  are,  without  a  change 
of  clothing.  They  had  three  sons  killed  in  the  last 
fight  before  Petersburg;  I'll  tell  you  all  about 
them." 

"You're  back  later  than  you  expected,"  said 
Easton. 

"Yes;  I  wanted  a  few  nights  more  on  the  pine 
155 


MRS.  FARRELL 

boughs,  and  so  we  waited  for  an  early  start  this 
morning.  We  broke  camp  about  four  o'clock,  and 
started  for  West  Pekin  with  the  sun.  But  he  beat 
us.  I  never  knew  heat  like  it;  it  was  a  good  thing 
for  me  that  I  had  been  toughened  by  a  few  days 
outdoors.  We  stopped  for  a  wash  in  a  brook  about 
three  miles  back  on  the  road,  and  then  we  steamed 
along  again.  I  reached  the  hotel  pretty  soon  after 
you  left,  and  put  on  the  thinnest  clothes  I  had ;  and 
then  I  started  for  the  farm.  They  had  spied  you 
making  in  this  direction,  and  their  information  was  so 
accurate  that  I  hadn't  any  trouble  in  finding  you." 

In  spite  of  a  visible  effort  to  be  at  ease  there  was 
a  note  of  constraint  in  Gilbert's  voluble  talk,  and 
he  seemed  eager  to  find  some  matter  not  personal 
to  them.  He  recurred  to  those  old  people  at  the 
lake,  and  told  about  them;  he  described  the  place 
where  he  had  camped ;  he  gave  characteristic  stories 
of  the  man  whom  he  had  taken  with  him  and  whose 
whole  philosophy  of  life  he  had  got  at  in  the  last 
three  days. 

At  the  end  of  it  all  Easton  said:  "I'm  glad  you 
don't  think  I  meant  you  any  harm,  Gilbert,  and 
I've  wanted  to  tell  you  so.  But  for  once  in  my  life 
I  didn't  seem  to  be  able  to  do  the  thing  I  ought. 
I  couldn't  understand  my  own  action.  It  was  morti 
fying  to  think  that  I  could  have  been  so  little  myself 
as  to  have  talked  of  that  matter,  and  I  was  ashamed 
to  recur  to  it;  I  couldn't.  I  don't  see  now  what  I 
can  say.  There  is  nothing  to  say  except  that  I  was 
entirely  guiltless  in  wounding  you,  and  that  I  am 
altogether  to  blame  for  it." 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Gilbert  smiled  at  the  paradox.  "Oh,  never  mind 
it,  Easton ;  I  tell  you  it's  all  right.  I  really  saw  the 
thing  in  its  true  light  at  first ;  and  if  the  devil  hadn't 
been  in  me,  I  shouldn't  have  mentioned  it.  Nobody 
blames  you.1' 

There  was  ever  so  slight  an  implication  of  su 
periority  in  the  last  words  which  stung  Easton, 
however  unmeant  he  knew  it  to  be,  and  he  rejoined 
anxiously,  "Yes,  but  I  was  to  blame;  it's  unjust 
not  to  blame  me." 

Gilbert  had  thrown  himself  back  on  the  flat 
rock,  and  was  looking  at  the  leaves  above,  with  the 
back  of  his  head  resting  in  the  hollow  of  his  clasped 
hands.  He  turned  his  face  a  little  toward  Easton, 
and  asked,  with  a  smile:  "Aren't  you  making  it  a 
little  difficult?  Let  it  all  go,  my  dear  old  fellow. 
There  never  was  anything  of  it.  Why  should  we 
make  something  of  it  now?" 

"How  can  I  let  it  go?"  cried  Easton.  "I  either 
wronged  you  and  was  to  blame,  or  else  was  not  to 
blame  because  I  was  simply  the  helpless  means  of 
wronging  you.  It  leaves  me  in  a  very  cruel  position ; 
I  must  refuse  your  forgiveness  or  accept  it  at  the 
cost  of  one  who  was  entirely  innocent.  If  I  let  it 
go  as  it  is,  I  skulk  behind  a  woman,  who,  as  far  as 
you  are  concerned,  was  really  the  victim  of  my  own 
folly  and  weakness." 

Gilbert  rose  to  a  sitting  posture  and  looked 
coldly  at  his  friend.  "I  want  you  to  take  notice," 
he  said,  "that  I  have  mentioned  no  one,  that  I 
have  tried  to  pass  the  matter  all  over.  You  have 
no  right  to  put  it  as  you  do."  His  eyes  began  to 

157 


MRS.  FARRELL 

flash,  and  he  went  on  recklessly,  "And  if  you  come 
to  talk  of  cruel  positions,  I  leave  you  to  say  what 
you  can  for  a  man  who  will  let  his  friend  go  as  long 
as  you  have  let  me  go,  without  saying  the  word  that 
might  have  removed  his  sense  of  a  cruelly  injurious 
slight." 

Easton  hung  down  his  head.  "I  have  nothing  to 
say  in  my  defense.'* 

"Oh!"  groaned  Gilbert.  "I  beg  your  pardon; 
I  do  indeed,  Easton.  I  didn't  mean  to  say  that." 

"It  makes  very  little  difference  whether  you  say 
or  think  your  contempt  of  me,"  rejoined  Easton, 
gloomily.  "It  can't  be  greater  than  the  contempt 
I  feel  for  myself." 

He  looked  so  piteously  abased,  so  hopelessly  hu 
miliated,  that  Gilbert  came  and  laid  his  arm  across 
his  shoulder — the  nearest  that  an  American  can 
come  to  embracing  his  friend.  "Look  here,  let's 
stop  this  thing  right  here,  or  it  will  get  the  upper 
hand  of  us  in  another  minute.  Come,  now,  I  won't 
make  another  apology  if  you  won't!  Is  it  quits?" 

Easton  caught  Gilbert's  humor,  and  laughed  the 
ghost  of  his  odd,  reluctant  laugh.  "It's  safest,"  he 
said;  "it  seems  to  be  the  only  way  to  keep  from 
coming  to  blows.  Besides,  it's  superfluous  on  your 
part." 

"Oh,  I  can't  allow  that,"  retorted  Gilbert,  "if  I 
may  say  so  without  offense,"  he  added,  with  mock 
anxiety. 

"Gilbert,"  Easton  began,  after  a  little  silence, 
"I  suppose  you  must  know  what  I  would  like  to 
tell  you?" 

158 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Gilbert,  who  had  resumed  his  former  place, 
glanced  at  his  friend  from  the  corner  of  his  eye. 
"  Yes,  I  think  I  can  guess  it." 

"Well?" 

"Why,  my  dear  fellow,  it's  so  very  completely 
and  rightly  your  own  affair,  that  I  can  have  nothing 
to  say  if  you  tell  it.  A  man  doesn't  ask  his  friend 
for  advice  in  such  matters;  he  asks  him  for  sym 
pathy,  for  congratulation." 

Easton  gave  a  little  sigh.  "And  that  you're  not 
prepared  to  offer,"  he  said,  with  a  miserable  smile. 

"Why,  Easton!"  exclaimed  the  other.  "Isn't 
this  rather  a  new  line  for  you?  Since  when  have 
you  wanted  my  approval  of  any  course  you  were  to 
take?  You  used  to  make  up  your  mind  to  a  thing 
and  do  it,  and  then  ask  my  approval." 

"Approval  isn't  the  question,  quite,"  said  Eas 
ton,  nettled.  "There's  nothjng  to  approve  or  to 
disapprove." 

"I  admit  the  word's  clumsy,"  answered  Gilbert, 
shortly. 

Easton  said  nothing  for  a  little  while,  and  then 
he  spoke  soberly:  "I  don't  want  to  force  any  con 
fidence  on  you,  Gilbert;  and  after  what's  passed  I 
know  it's  natural  for  you  to  shrink  from  having 
anything  to  do  with  this  affair  of  mine;  it  is  com 
pletely  my  own,  as  you  say.  But  I  can't  have  things 
remain  as  they  are  in  your  mind  in  regard  to — to 
Mrs.  Farrell.  You  know  that  I'm  in  love  with  her; 
it's  no  secret;  I  wouldn't  mind  shouting  it  from 
the  housetop,  even  if  she  had  refused  me  a  hundred 
times.  But  she  hasn't.  I  have  told  her  that  I  love 

159 


MRS.  FARRELL 

her;  and  she  hasn't  forbidden  me;  I  don't  know 
whether  she  has  warranted  me  in  hoping,  or  not; 
but  she  has  imposed  conditions  on  my  speaking  to 
her  again,  and  that  is  something." 

He  glanced  appealingly  at  Gilbert,  who  sat  up 
and  confronted  him.  "Easton,"  he  said,  with  an 
indefinable  air  of  uncandor,  "we  never  spoke  of 
Mrs.  Farrell  together  but  once,  and  then  I  said 
things  which,  if  I  could  have  supposed  you  were 
going  to  take  her  so  seriously,  I  wouldn't  have  said. 
You  know  that." 

"Yes,  I  know  that,  Gilbert,"  answered  Easton, 
affectionately. 

"Well;  and  now  what  do  you  want  me  to  say? 
You  must  let  me  hold  my  tongue.  It's  the  only 
way.  I  will  respect  you  in  whatever  you  do.  As 
for  the  lady  who  may  some  day  forbid  you  to  bring 
me  to  dinner  any  more,  the  least  said  is  the  soonest 
mended." 

"Yes;  but  you  are  very  unjust  to  her."  The 
words  seemed  to  have  escaped  from  Easton,  who 
looked  a  trifle  alarmed  after  speaking  them. 

"Unjust?  Unjust!  You're  right;  I  revise  my 
opinion;  I  think  I  didn't  do  her  justice." 

"What  do  you  mean?"  demanded  Easton. 

Gilbert  gave  a  short  laugh. 

"You  must  know,  Gilbert,"  said  Easton,  breath 
ing  quickly,  "that  this  is  very  insulting  to  me." 

"I  beg  your  pardon.  I  don't  mean  to  insult  you, 
Heaven  knows.  But  I  do  ask  your  leave  to  be 
silent." 

' '  And  I  ask  you  to  hear  me  patiently.  Will  you  ? ' ' 
160 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"I  will,  indeed." 

Easton  opened  his  lips  as  if  to  speak,  but  he  did 
not  speak  at  once ;  he  did  not  seem  to  find  the  words 
or  the  thoughts  so  ready  as  he  expected. 

'I  never  blamed  you,"  he  began,  finally,  "for  any 
judgment  you  formed  of  her  character,  and  I  cer 
tainly  invited  the  expression  of  it.  I  know  that  what 
she  says  and  does  sometimes  can  be  harshly  inter 
preted,"  and  again  he  hesitated,  "but  I'm  sure  any 
one  who  will  make  a  generous  interpretation — ' 

"I'll  try,"  interrupted  Gilbert;  "I'll  adopt  any 
generous  interpretation  you  offer  of  her  experiment 
upon  the  strength  of  our  regard.  How  does  she 
explain  it  herself?" 

"She  explains  it — "  began  Easton,  "she  made  it  a 
condition  of  my  speaking  to  her  again — she  told  me 
to  say — " 

He  choked  with  the  words,  and  Gilbert  was  silent. 
"Oh,  my  dear,  dear  old  Easton,"  he  broke  out  at 
last,  "do  let  it  all  go!  What's  Mrs.  Farrell  to  me  or 
I  to  her?  If  you  are  in  love  with  her,  why,  marry 
her  and  be  done  with  it.  I  could  imagine  any 
woman's  turning  constant  by  virtue  of  your  loving 
her,  and  I've  no  doubt  she'll  be  the  best  wife  in  the 
world  for  you.  I  take  back  all  I  said  of  her." 

"It  isn't  that;  it's  what  you  haven't  said.  It's 
<what  you  think,"  said  Easton,  hotly. 

"Oh,  good  Lord!    And  what  is  it  I  think?" 

"You  exonerate  me  from  all  blame  in  the  cause  of 
our  disagreement." 

"Yes,  I  do!" 

"But  if  you  exonerate  me  at  her  expense,  you 
11  161 


MRS.  FARRELL 

disgrace  and  dishonor  me;  you  offer  me  a  reconcili 
ation  that  no  man  can  accept." 

Gilbert  did  not  answer,  and  seemed  to  have  made 
up  his  mind  not  to  answer.  Easton  went  on,  "She 
feels  so  deeply  the  trouble  between  us  that  she 
charged  me  to  make  friends  with  you  at  any  cost; 
not  to  spare  her  in  the  least — to — " 

Easton  hesitated,  and  Gilbert  said,  "Well?"  but 
the  other  did  not  go  on.  Then  Gilbert  said:  "I 
have  no  comment  to  make  on  all  this.  What  do  you 
wish  me  to  do?" 

"To  do?  What  do  I  wish?  Do  you  think  you 
don't  owe  it  to  her  to  say — " 

Gilbert  laughed  aloud.  ' ' That  she  acted  from  the 
highest  motives  throughout?  No,  I  certainly  don't 
think  that,"  he  said,  and  then  he  began  to  grow  pale, 
while  Easton  reddened  angrily.  ' '  By  Heaven !"  Gil 
bert  broke  out,  "it  seems  that  I  have  misunderstood 
this  case.  I  supposed  that  between  you  you  had 
somehow  used  me  ill,  but  it  appears  that  I  have  done 
an  injury  to  a  meek  and  long-suffering  angel.  I 
supposed  that  she  had  cunningly  turned  the  chance 
you  gave  her  against  me,  and  meant,  if  she  couldn't 
make  me  feel  her  power  one  way,  to  make  me  feel 
it  another.  I  supposed  she  intended  to  break  us 
apart,  and  to  be  certain  of  you  at  any  cost.  But  I'll 
interpret  her  generously,  since  you  wish  me  to.  I'll 
say  that  I  acquit  her  of  any  particular  malevolence. 
I'll  say  that  she  merely  wanted  to  over-punish  me, 
like  a  woman,  for  some  offense  in  my  words  or 
manner;  or  I'll  say  that  she  acted  from  an  empty 
and  reckless  caprice;  that  it  was  curiosity  drove 

162 


MRS.  FARRELL 

her  to  follow  up  the  clew  which  you  had  given  her 
— for  motives  of  your  own;  I  won't  judge  them. 
I'll  say  that  I  believe  she  was  frightened  when  she 
saw  the  mischief  she  had  done,  and  would  have  un 
done  it  if  she  could;  though  I'm  not  so  sure  of  that, 
either !  You  think  she  might  be  induced  to  forgive 
me,  do  you?  Will  you  undertake  to  tell  her  what  I 
say,  and  make  my  peace  with  her?"  he  asked 
offensively,  his  nostrils  dilating.  "I've  had  enough 
of  this!"  and  he  rose. 

Easton  had  sat  silent  under  this  torrent  of  bitter 
ness.  He  now  sprang  to  his  feet. 

1 '  Stop ! "  he  shouted.  ' '  You  have  got  to  take  back 
every  word — " 

"Don't  be  a  fool,  Easton!" 

Easton  ground  his  teeth.  "You  take  a  base  ad 
vantage  of  what  has  passed  between  us;  you  rely 
on  my  forbearance  to — " 

"Oh!  Passed  between  us!"  sneered  Gilbert. 
"Your  forbearance!  What  do  you  think  of  the  for 
bearance  of  a  man  who  could  lend  himself  to  an 
infamous  scoundrel's  revenge;  who  could  consent 
to  rise  at  his  friend's  expense,  and  then  live  to  boast 
of  it  to  a  woman?" 

Easton  choked.  "What  do  you  think,"  he  cried 
with  equal  outrage,  "  of  a  man  who  could  urge  me  to 
do  what  I  did,  and  always  refuse  to  do  or  be  any 
thing  that  could  cancel  my  regret,  holding  my  con 
sent  in  reproach  over  me  through  years  of  fraud  and 
hypocrisy,  to  fling  it  in  my  face  at  last?" 

Their  friendship,  honored  and  dear  so  long,  was 
in  the  dust  between  them,  and  they  trampled  it 


MRS.  FARRELL 

under  foot  with  the  infernal  hate  that  may  have 
always  lurked,  a  possible  atrocity,  in  their  hearts, 
silenced,  darkened,  put  to  shame  by  the  perpetual 
kindness  of  their  daily  lives. 

It  remained  for  Gilbert,  with  all  the  insult  he 
could  wreak  in  the  demand,  to  ask,  "Is  that  Mrs, 
Farrell's  interpretation  of  my  motives?"  and  then 
they  were  in  the  mood  to  kill,  if  they  had  been 
armed.  But  so  much  of  the  personal  sanctity  in 
which  they  had  held  each  other  remained  instinc 
tive  with  them  that  they  could  not  inflict  the  final 
shame  of  blows. 

They  stood  face  to  face  in  silence,  and  then  Gil 
bert  turned  and  walked  slowly  down  toward  the 
opening  of  the  glen ;  Easton  made  a  few  mechanical 
paces  after  him.  When  Gilbert  reached  the  border 
of  the  meadow  he  stopped  and,  with  whatever 
motive,  went  swiftly  back  to  the  scene  of  their 
quarrel.  He  came  in  sight  of  the  spot,  but  Easton 
was  not  to  be  seen  there;  he  quickened  his  going 
almost  to  a  run;  and  then  he  saw  Easton  lying  at 
the  brink  of  the  pool.  There  was  a  slight  cut  along 
his  temple,  from  which  the  blood  ran  curling  into 
the  clear  basin,  where  it  hung  distinct,  like  a  spire 
of  smoke  in  crystal  air. 


Chapter  X 

GILBERT  knelt  at  the  side  of  the  man  who 
was  his  friend  again,  and  caught  up  his 
head  and  dashed  his  face  from  the  pool, 
while  a  groan  broke  from  his  own  lips — the  anguish 
of  the  sex  which  our  race  forbids  to  weep.  He 
stanched  the  blood  with  his  handkerchief,  and  then 
felt  in  Easton's  pocket  for  another  to  bind  over  the 
wound;  and  as  he  folded  it  in  his  hands  it  emitted 
a  fragrance  that  pierced  him  with  a  certain  puzzling 
suggestion,  and  added  to  his  sorrow  a  keener  sting 
of  remorseful  shame. 

Easton  unclosed  his  eyes  at  last,  and  looked  up 
at  him.  ''Did  you  strike  me,  Gilbert?"  he  asked. 

"No,  no — oh  no!  God  knows  I  didn't!  How 
could  I  strike  you,  my  dear  old  boy?" 

"I  thought  you  did;  you  would  have  done  well 
to  kill  me.  I  had  outraged  you  to  the  death." 

"Oh,  Easton,  I  came  here  wanting  to  be  friends 
with  you,  to  make  it  all  right  again.  And  now — ' 

"I  know  that.  It  is  all  right.  Whose  blood  is 
this?  Were  you  hurt?  Oh — mine!  Yes,  I  must 
have  fainted,  and  cut  myself  in  falling.  I've  felt 
queer  all  day.  This  heat  has  been  too  much  for  me. 
How  long  ago  was  it?" 

"How  long?    I  don't  know.    Just  now." 

165 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"I  thought  it  was  longer.  It  seems  a  great  while 
ago." 

He  closed  his  eyes  wearily,  and  Gilbert  stood 
looking  ruefully  down  upon  him.  After  a  little 
while  he  rose  giddily  to  his  feet.  '  *  Will  you  help  me 
home,  Gilbert?"  he  asked,  as  he  leaned  tremu 
lously  against  a  rock. 

"You  could  never  walk  to  the  hotel,  Easton," 
said  Gilbert.  Easton  sat  down  again,  and  Gilbert 
stared  at  him  in  perplexed  silence.  "By  heavens!" 
he  broke  out,  "I  don't  know  what  to  do,  exactly. 
If  you  were  over  at  the  farm  we  could  get  that 
carryall  and  drive  you  to  the  hotel ;  but  your  room 
would  be  horribly  close  and  hot  after  you  got  there. ' ' 

"I  can't  go  to  the  farmhouse,"  said  Easton,  with 
languid  impatience,  "and  run  the  chances  of  mak 
ing  a  scene;  I  couldn't  stand  that,  you  know." 

"No;  you  couldn't  stand  that,"  assented  Gilbert, 
gloomily.  "But  it  would  be  much  the  same  thing 
at  the  hotel,  with  more  women  to  assist.  Faint?" 
he  asked,  looking  anxiously  at  Easton 's  face. 

"A  little.  You'd  better  wet  my  head,"  answered 
Easton,  taking  off  the  handkerchief  that  bound  up 
his  face.  Gilbert  did  so,  and  then  left  the  drip 
ping  handkerchief  on  Easton's  head.  "Thanks. 
That's  good.  We'll  stay  here  awhile.  It's  the  best 
place,  after  all.  It's  cool  as  any,"  he  said,  looking 
refreshed. 

Gilbert  watched  his  face  anxiously;  but  he  was 
at  his  wits'  end,  and  they  both  sat  silent.  He 
looked  at  his  watch;  it  was  two  o'clock.  He  grimly 
waited  half  an  hour,  exchanging  a  word  with  Eas- 

166 


MRS.  FARRELL 

ton  now  and  then,  and  freshening  the  handkerchief 
at  the  pool  from  time  to  time.  The  opening  of  the 
glen  darkened,  and  the  steady  glare  on  the  meadow 
beyond  ceased.  Gilbert  walked  down  to  the  edge 
of  the  pasture  and  looked  out.  A  heavy  cloud  hid 
the  sun.  "Look  here,  Easton,  this  won't  do,"  he 
said  when  he  came  back.  "It's  going  to  rain,  and 
you've  got  to  get  under  shelter,  somehow.  We  must 
run  the  gantlet  to  the  back  of  the  farmhouse,  and 
try  to  find  some  conveyance  to  the  hotel.  Do  you 
think  you  could  manage  to  walk  with  my  help  across 
the  meadow?  The  sun's  behind  a  cloud,  now,  and 
I  don't  think  it  would  hurt  you." 

"Oh  yes,"  said  Easton,  "I  can  walk  very  well. 
Just  give  me  your  arm,  a  little  way." 

They  set  out  and  toiled  slowly  up  the  long 
meadow  slope,  slanting  their  course  in  the  direction 
of  the  orchard  behind  the  house.  Easton  hung  more 
heavily  on  his  friend ' s  arm  as  they  drew  nearer.  "Do 
you  suppose  we've  been  seen?"  he  panted,  as  they 
stepped  through  a  gap  in  the  orchard  wall. 

"No;  there  isn't  a  woman  on  watch;  not  a  soli 
tary  soul.  They're  everyone  asleep — confound 
'em,"  said  Gilbert,  in  the  fervent  irrelevancy  of 
his  gratitude.  "Now  you  sit  here,  Easton,  and  I'll 
run  up  to  the  kitchen  door  and  tell  one  of  the  boys 
to  get  out  his  team,  and  we'll  have  you  out  of 
harm's  way  in  half  a  minute." 

Easton  sank  upon  a  stone,  and  Gilbert  ran  toward 
the  house  under  cover  of  the  orchard  trees.  He 
was  not  out  of  sight  when  Easton  heard  women's 
voices  behind  a  cluster  of  blackberry  brambles 


MRS.  FARRELL 

near  the  wall  on  the  left;  then,  without  being  able 
to  stir,  he  heard  the  sweep  of  dresses  over  the  grass 
toward  him;  he  knew  that  in  the  next  instant  he 
was  to  be  discovered;  he  rose  with  a  desperate 
effort  and  confronted  Mrs.  Farrell  and  the  two 
young  girls,  Miss  Alden  and  Miss  Jewett,  who  were 
lamenting  the  heat  and  wondering  how  soon  it 
would  rain. 

He  felt  rather  than  heard  them  stop,  and  he  made 
some  weak  paces  toward  them,  essaying  a  ghastly 
smile  as  he  lifted  his  eyes  to  Mrs.  Farrell 's  face. 
Then  he  saw  her  blanch  at  his  pallor,  and  saw  her 
see  the  cut  on  his  temple.  "I've  had  a  fall,  and  a 
little  scratch.  It's  nothing.  Don't  mind  it. 
Gilbert—" 

A  killing  chagrin,  such  as  only  a  man  can  feel 
who  finds  himself  unmanned  in  the  presence  of  her 
he  loves,  was  his  last  sensation  as  he  sank  in  the 
grass  before  her.  The  young  girls  fled  backward, 
but  she  rushed  toward  him  with  a  wild  cry,  "Oh, 
he's  dead!"  and  in  another  moment  the  people 
came  running  out  of  the  house  and  thronged  round 
them  with  question,  and  injurious  good  will,  and 
offers  to  have  him  taken  to  their  rooms.  Gilbert 
came  with  them  and  flung  up  his  fists  in  despair. 
Mrs.  Farrell  had  Easton's  head  upon  her  knee,  and 
was  sprinkling  his  face  from  one  of  many  proffered 
flagons  of  cologne.  "No,  he  shall  not  go  to  your 
room,"  she  vehemently  retorted  upon  the  last 
hospitable  zealot;  "he  shall  go  to  mine;  he  is 
mine!"  she  said.  "Here,  Rachel,  Ben,  Mrs.  Wood 
ward — will  you  help  me?" 

168 


MRS.  FARRELL 

The  others  fell  back  at  her  brave  confession,  and 
they  all  began  to  like  her.  They  meekly  suffered 
themselves  to  be  dispersed,  and  they  cowered 
together  on  the  piazza  while  a  messenger  ran  for 
the  doctor.  Then,  while  the  ladies  waited  his  re 
port,  they  talked  together  in  low  tones,  though 
they  were  separated  from  Mrs.  Farrell's  room  by 
the  whole  depth  of  the  house.  Not  a  voice  dis 
sented  from  the  praises  of  the  heroine  of  a  love  epi 
sode  whose  dramatic  interest  reflected  luster  upon 
them  all.  The  ladies  were  even  more  enthusiastic 
than  the  men,  and  several  rebuked  their  husbands, 
who  had  formerly  been  too  forward  in  doing  justice 
to  Mrs.  Farrell,  for  coldness  in  responding  now  to 
their  own  pleasure  in  her. 

"George,  how  can  you  smoke?"  asked  the 
youngest  of  the  married  ladies,  and  reproachfully 
drew  her  husband's  newspaper  away  from  him  and 
sent  him  into  the  orchard  with  his  cigar.  Another 
made  her  husband  take  the  children  away  for  a 
walk,  in  order  that  the  ladies  might  not  be  dis 
tracted  by  their  play  while  attending  the  verdict 
of  the  physician.  The  common  belief  was  that 
Easton  would  die,  and  in  the  meantime  they  excited 
themselves  over  the  question  as  to  how,  when,  and 
where  he  had  fallen.  The  husband  with  the  cigar 
was  suffered  to  approach  and  say  that  he  had  known 
an  old  fellow  once  who  had  been  out  in  the  heat  a 
good  deal,  and  had  gone  into  the  woods  to  cool  off, 
and  had  come  home  in  the  evening  with  a  cut  in 
his  head  and  a  story  that  he  had  been  attacked  and 
knocked  down. 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Yes,"  said  one  of  the  ladies,  who  had  a  logical 
mind,  "but  Mr.  Easton  doesn't  pretend  to  have 
been  knocked  down,  and — and  he  isn't  an  old 
fellow." 

"I  was  going  to  say,"  retorted  the  smoker, 
taking  a  good  long  whiff,  with  half-closed  eyes,  in 
sensible  to  the  frantically  gesticulated  protest  of 
his  wife,  "that  this  old  fellow  was  supposed  not  to 
have  been  attacked  at  all;  he  had  got  giddy  with 
the  heat  and  tumbled  over  and  barked  his  skull 
against  a  tree,  and  then  fancied  he'd  been  knocked 
down;  they  often  do." 

The  theory  seemed  to  have  reason  in  it,  but  the 
language  in  which  it  was  clothed  made  it  too  re 
pulsive  for  acceptance,  and  there  was  open  resent 
ment  of  it  by  the  tribunal  before  which  it  was 
offered.  At  this  moment  the  doctor  was  seen 
slanting  down  the  grass  toward  the  gate  from  the 
side  door;  the  ladies  called  after  him  and  captured 
him. 

"The  wound  is  a  very  slight  matter,"  said  the 
doctor;  "but  Mr.  Easton  had  something  like  a 
sunstroke  this  summer  in  New  York,  and  is  very 
sensitive  to  the  heat." 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  the  spokeswoman,  eager  for  all, 
"but  what  happened  to  him?  How  did  he  get 
hurt?" 

"His  friend  thinks  he  was  overcome  by  the  heat 
and  struck  his  face  against  a  point  of  rock  in  falling, 
over  there  in  the  valley  by  the  sugar  orchard." 

"There!"  said  the  young  wife,  who  at  heart  had 
felt  keenly  injured  by  the  indifference  to  her  hus- 

170 


MRS.  FARRELL 

band's  theory,  "it's  just  as  George  said.  Oh, 
George!'1  She  took  him  by  the  arm,  joying  in  his 
wisdom,  and  looked  fondly  into  his  face,  while  he 
smoked  imperturbably. 

"Yes,  but  will  he  get  well?"  tremulously  de 
manded  the  spokeswoman  of  the  group,  pursuing 
the  doctor  on  his  way  to  the  gate. 

"Oh,  I  think  so,"  said  the  doctor;  "he's  got  the 
temperature  in  his  favor  now";  for  though  the 
threatened  storm  had  passed  without  rain,  it  had 
left  the  air  much  cooler. 

The  doctor  mounted  into  his  buggy  and  chir 
ruped  to  his  horse  and  drove  off.  He  came  again 
in  the  evening,  and  said  they  had  better  not  move 
Easton  to  the  hotel  that  night,  left  his  prescrip 
tions,  and  went  away. 

Mrs.  Woodward  and  Rachel  began  to  talk  to 
gether  about  where  they  should  put  Easton. 

"Put  him!"  cried  Mrs.  Farrell,  emerging  upon 
them  where  they  stood  in  a  dimly  lighted  group, 
with  Gilbert  and  Mrs.  Gilbert  just  outside  the  door. 
She  had  an  armful  of  draperies  of  which  she  had 
been  dismantling  her  closet.  "He's  not  to  be  put 
anywhere.  I'm  going  to  stay  with  Rachel,  and  he's 
to  stay  where  he  is  till  he  gets  perfectly  well.  It 
would  kill  him  to  move  him!"  The  women  were 
impressed,  and  looked  to  see  conviction  in  Gilbert's 
face. 

"It  would  kill  him  to  keep  him  where  he  is,  Mrs. 
Farrell,"  said  Gilbert,  dryly.  "A  man  can't  stand 
too  much  kindness  in  his  sensitive  state.  You 
must  have  some  regard  for  his  helplessness.  He 

171 


MRS.  FARRELL 

would  never  let  you  turn  out  of  your  room  for  him 
in  the  world;  and  if  you  try  to  make  him  it  will 
simply  worry  him  to  death.  It  11  be  gall  and  worm 
wood  to  him,  anyway,  to  think  of  the  trouble  he's 
given.  You  must  have  a  little  mercy  on  him." 

Gilbert  had  to  make  a  long  fight  in  behalf  of  his 
friend;  he  ended  by  painting  Easton's  terrors  of  a 
scene  when  they  were  coming  toward  the  farm 
house  from  the  glen. 

Opinion  began  to  veer  round  to  his  side.  "Well, 
well,"  cried  Mrs.  Farrell,  passionately,  "take  him 
away  from  me — take  him  where  you  will !  You  let 
me  do  nothing  for  him;  you  think  him  nothing  to 
me!" 

"If  he  could  stay  where  he  is  for  the  night," 
said  Mrs.  Woodward,  "he  could  have  Mrs.  Bur- 
roughs's  room  to-morrow;  she's  going  to  the  sea 
side  and  won't  want  it  any  more." 

This  matter-of-fact  proposal  seemed  so  reason 
able  that  it  united  the  faltering  opposition,  and  Mrs. 
Farrell  had  to  give  way.  In  their  hearts,  no  doubt, 
all  the  women  sighed  over  the  situation's  loss  of 
ideality.  At  parting,  Mrs.  Gilbert  took  Mrs.  Far- 
rell's  hand  and  went  so  far  as  to  kiss  her.  "I 
don't  think  you  need  be  anxious,"  the  older  woman 
said.  "The  doctor  says  he  needs  nothing  but  care 
and  quiet,  and  he'll  be  well  again  in  a  few  days. 
Even  now  I  can't  help  congratulating  you.  I 
didn't  know  matters  had  gone  so  far — so  soon. 
My  dear,"  she  added,  after  a  little  hesitation,  "I'm 
afraid  I  haven't  quite  done  you  justice.  I  thought 
— excuse  my  saying  it  now — I  thought  perhaps  you 

172 


MRS.  FARRELL 

were  amusing  yourself.  I  beg  your  pardon  in  all 
humbleness." 

"Oh  don't,  don't,  Mrs.  Gilbert!"  cried  Mrs.  Far- 
rell,  and  cast  her  arms  about  her  neck,  and  sobbed 
there.  She  went  to  Rachel's  room,  and  changed  her 
dress  for  a  charming  gown  in  which  she  could  just 
lie  down  and  jump  up  in  an  instant.  She  bound  her 
hair  in  a  simple  knot,  and  when  she  came  back  to 
her  own  room  with  her  lamp  held  high  and  shaded 
with  one  hand,  she  looked  like  a  stylish  Florence 
Nightingale  with  a  dash  of  Lady  Macbeth. 

Gilbert  was  sitting  there  in  the  dark,  beside  a 
table  on  which  the  light  revealed  a  curious  store  of 
medicines  and  restoratives,  the  contribution  of  all 
the  boarders :  five  or  six  flagons  of  cologne  and  one 
of  bay  rum;  a  case  bottle  of  brandy;  a  bottle  of 
Bourbon  whisky;  a  pint  of  Bass's  pale  ale;  the 
medicines  left  by  the  doctor ;  some  phials  of  homoeo 
pathic  pellets  from  Mrs.  Stevenson,  who  used  the 
high-potency  medicines ;  a  tiny  bottle  of  liquid  nux 
from  Mrs.  Gilbert,  who  preferred  the  appreciable 
doses,  and  despised  all  who  did  not;  a  lemon; 
three  oranges;  a  box  of  guava  jelly — from  one  of 
the  young  girls.  Mrs.  Farrell's  tragic  gaze  met 
Gilbert's  lowering  eyes  and  wandered  with  them  to 
this  array;  they  both  smiled,  but  she  was  the  first 
to  frown.  She  beckoned  him  from  the  room,  and 
"Here  is  your  lamp,"  she  said.  "Don't  turn  it 
down  or  it  will  smoke,  but  set  it  where  it  won't 
shine  in  his  eyes.  I'm  going  to  be  there  in  that 
room."  She  pointed  down  the  passageway  toward 
Rachel's  door.  "If  he  needs  the  least  thing  you're 

173 


MRS.   FARRELL 

to  call  me."  Her  severity  would  have  admonished 
any  levity  that  lingered  in  Gilbert's  heavy  heart, 
as  she  put  the  lamp  in  his  hand. 

"Let  me  light  you  back  to  your  room,"  he  said, 
with  moody  humility. 

"No,  I  can  find  the  way  perfectly  well  in  the 
dark,"  she  answered.  "Or — yes,  you  had  better 
come,  so  as  to  make  sure  of  the  right  door  in  case 
you  need  me.  You  think  I  tried  to  make  you  quar 
rel!"  she  said  in  a  swift  undertone,  as  they  passed 
down  the  hall;  "but  I  never  meant  it,  and  you 
know  that,  whatever  you  think.  Oh,  I  have  been 
punished,  punished!  But  I'm  glad  you  held  out 
against  me  about  the  room,"  she  added.  "He 
would  have  been  as  true  to  you ;  and  if  you  had  let 
me  do  anything  to  make  him  seem  silly,  I  should 
have  hated  you!" 

He  saw  with  a  man's  helplessness  the  tremor  of 
her  lips,  and  then  she  had  opened  and  closed  the 
door,  and  he  stood  blankly  staring  at  it. 

In  the  morning  Easton  was  well  enough  to  sit  up 
in  an  easy-chair,  and  was  fretfully  eager  to  return 
to  his  hotel.  It  was  clear  that  he  was  intensely 
vexed  at  having  caused  the  sensation  of  the  day 
before,  and  that  the  fear  of  giving  further  trouble 
galled  him  with  the  keenest  shame.  They  were 
only  too  glad  to  release  him  from  the  fond  imprison 
ment  to  which  Mrs.  Farrell  would  have  sentenced 
him,  on  condition  that  he  would  consent  to  occupy 
the  room  vacated  by  Mrs.  Burroughs  for  a  few 
days,  and  be  cared  for  better  than  he  could  be  at 
the  hotel,  until  he  was  quite  well  again. 

174 


MRS.  FARRELL 

But  in  a  few  days  he  was  not  quite  so  well.  He 
fell  from  his  dull  languor  into  a  low  fever,  and  from 
feebly  lounging  about  his  room  and  drowsing  in  an 
easy-chair  it  came  to  his  not  rising  one  morning 
at  all. 

Thus  his  hold  upon  the  happiness  so  fiercely 
pursued,  and  now  within  his  grasp,  relaxed,  and  a 
vast  vagueness  encompassed  him,  in  which  he  strove 
with  one  colossal  task :  to  make  Gilbert  see  a  certain 
matter  as  he  saw  it,  which  was  not  at  all  the  matter 
of  their  quarrel,  but  some  strange  abstraction,  he 
never  could  make  out  what,  though  their  agree 
ment  upon  it  was  a  vital  necessity.  He  was  never 
delirious,  but  he  was  never  sure  of  anything ;  a  veil 
was  drawn  between  his  soul  and  all  experience;  he 
could  not  tell,  when  he  had  been  asleep,  that  he  had 
slept;  his  waking  was  a  dream;  the  world  moved 
round  him  in  elusive  shadow. 

He  was  what  one  of  the  ladies  called  comfortably 
sick.  It  was  not  thought  from  the  first  that  he  was 
in  danger,  and  as  it  turned  out  he  was  not.  But  if 
he  had  lain  for  a  month  at  the  point  of  death,  he 
could  not  have  been  more  precious  to  that  houseful 
of  women,  who  enjoyed  every  instant  of  the  poetic 
situation;  maid  and  matron,  those  tender  hearts 
were  alike  glad  of  the  occasion  to  renew  in  this  for 
tunate  reality  their  faith  in  romance,  and  they 
turned  fondly  to  Mrs.  Farrell  for  a  fulfillment  of 
their  ideal  of  devotion.  It  looked  on  the  face  of 
things  rather  like  expecting  devotion  from  a  Pom- 
peian  fresco,  so  little  did  her  signal  beauty  seem 
related  to  the  exigency,  so  far  should  sickness  and 

175 


MRS.   FARRELL 

sorrow  have  been  from  her  world.  But  here  Mrs. 
Farrell  most  disappointed  those  who  most  feared 
her  picturesque  inadequacy.  She  threw  herself  into 
her  part  with  inspiration;  rising  far  above  the 
merely  capable  woman,  she  made  her  care  of  Easton 
a  work  of  genius,  and  not  only  divined  his  wants  and 
ministered  to  his  comfort  with  a  success  that  sur 
prised  all  experience,  but  dealt  so  cunningly  with 
his  moods  that  he  was  at  last  flattered  into  submis 
sion  if  not  resignation.  In  the  beginning  he  was 
indeed  a  most  refractory  object  of  devotion;  he 
chafed  so  bitterly  against  his  helpless  lapse  into  the 
fever,  he  was  in  such  a  continual  revolt  against  his 
hospitable  detention  at  the  farmhouse,  and  was  so 
weighed  down,  through  all  the  hazy  distance  in 
which  his  life  ebbed  from  actual  events,  with  the 
shame  of  being  a  burden,  that  no  magic  less  than 
hers  could  have  consoled  him.  But  she  overcame 
his  scruples  and  reconciled  him  to  fate,  so  that  it 
did  not  seem  an  unfair  advantage  to  inflict  the  kind 
ness  against  which  he  could  not  struggle;  and  she 
had  her  way  with  him,  even  to  excess.  Since  she 
was  not  allowed  to  give  up  her  room  to  him,  she 
devoted  herself  in  the  moments  of  her  leisure  to  the 
decoration  of  his  chamber.  She  upholstered  it 
almost  anew  with  contributions  from  the  ladies  of 
scraps  of  chintz,  mosquito-netting,  and  dotted 
muslin ;  she  shut  out  the  garish  light  with  soft  cur 
tains;  she  put  on  the  plain  mirror  and  toilet  table 
what  Gilbert  called  a  French  cap  and  overskirt, 
and  she  furbelowed  the  mantelpiece.  She  took  Mrs. 
Woodward's  ivies  and  trained  them  up  the  corners, 


MRS.  FARRELL 

and  she  had  a  great  vase  on  the  table,  often  renewed 
with  autumnal  wild  flowers,  ferns,  and  the  firstlings 
of  the  reddening  sumac  leaves.  As  a  final  offering 
she  brought  in  her  spinning-wheel — the  mania  was 
then  just  beginning — and  set  it  by  the  hearth.  It 
must  be  owned  that  when  all  was  done  the  place 
had  a  certain  spectacularity ;  the  furniture  and  or 
naments  wore  somehow  the  air  of  properties;  on 
the  window  seats,  which  she  had  contrived  for 
greater  coziness  of  effect,  it  was  not  quite  safe  to 
sit  down.  But  her  friends — and  all  the  ladies  were 
her  friends  now — easily  forgave  this  to  her  real 
efficiency  and  her  unsparing  self-sacrifice;  the  two 
young  girls  worshiped  the  carpets  she  trod  upon, 
and  the  whole  sympathetic  household  sighed  in 
despair  at  the  perfection  with  which  she,  as  one  may 
say,  costumed  the  part.  She  had  ordinarily  in 
dulged  a  taste  for  those  strong  hues  that  went  best 
with  her  Southern  beauty,  but  now  her  robes  were 
of  the  softest  color  and  texture;  she  moved  in  slip 
pers  that  made  no  sound;  in  emblem  of  devotion 
to  the  sick-room  she  denied  herself  every  ornament ; 
at  first  she  even  left  off  her  Etruscan  ear-rings,  and 
kept  only  a  limp  scarf  of  dark  red  silk,  tied  at  her 
throat  in  a  sentiment  of  passionate  neglect.  In 
behalf  of  Easton's  peaceful  dreams  she  banished  the 
Japanese  fans,  with  their  nightmare  figures,  and  as 
she  sat  fanning  him  with  a  quaint,  old-fashioned 
fan  of  white  feathers,  which  she  had  skillfully 
mounted  on  a  long  handle,  her  partisans  declared, 
some  that  she  looked  like  an  Eastern  queen,  other 
some,  like  an  Egyptian  slave.  They  remembered 
12  177 


MRS.  FARRELL 

her  afterward  in  this  effect,  and  also  how  she  used 
to  look  as  she  stood  at  dusk  lighting  the  little  tapers 
which  she  had  found  at  a  queer  country  store  in  an 
out-of-the-way  village  of  the  neighborhood,  and 
setting  them  afloat  in  a  vase  of  oil,  to  illumine  the 
chamber  during  the  night.  She  realized  the  charac 
ter  as  thoroughly  in  other  respects;  she  met  the 
friendliness  all  round  her  with  gentle  appreciation, 
availed  herself  of  it  little  or  nothing,  and  for  the 
most  part  quietly  withdrew  from  it.  Her  defiant 
airs  were  all  laid  aside;  her  prevailing  mood  was 
serious ;  she  often  spoke  earnestly  of  matters  which 
certainly  had  not  commanded  her  open  reverence 
before;  there  was  a  great  change  in  her  in  every 
way,  and  some,  who  had  always  longed  to  like  her, 
liked  her  now  with  thankful  hearts  for  the  oppor 
tunity.  Among  these  Mrs.  Gilbert  made  her  ad 
vances  like  one  who  has  an  atonement  to  offer; 
Mrs.  Farrell  frankly  accepted  the  tacit  regret,  and 
visited  a  good  deal  in  her  room. 

But  as  the  sick  man's  disorder  slowly  ran  its 
course,  and  the  days  took  him  further  and  further 
from  any  joy  in  her,  Mrs.  Farrell  seemed  to  lose 
her  hold  of  the  situation,  and  another  change  came 
over  her,  in  which  she  fell  from  her  high  activities 
into  a  kind  of  dull  and  listless  patience,  and  dragged 
out  the  time,  uncheered  by  the  inspiration  that  had 
hitherto  upheld  her.  She  seemed  not  to  know 
what  to  do.  The  spring  was  gone,  the  impulse 
exhausted,  in  that  strange  nature,  which  knew  itself 
perhaps  as  little  as  others  knew  it.  Those  were  the 
days  when  she  surrendered  her  authority  to  Rachel, 

178 


MRS.   FARRELL 

and  served  under  her  about  Easton,  who  had  also 
fallen  largely  to  the  care  of  Gilbert  and  Ben  Wood 
ward.  Few  young  ladies  would  not  willingly  assume 
the  task  of  nursing  a  young  man  through  a  low  fever 
in  a  romance,  but  the  reality  is  different.  If  it  had 
been  something  short  and  sharp,  a  matter  of  a 
week's  supreme  self-devotion,  it  would  doubtless 
have  been  otherwise  with  her;  she  was  capable  of 
great  things,  but  a  long  trial  of  her  endurance  must 
finally  lose  its  meaning.  She  had  times  of  melan 
choly  in  which  she  sat  behind  her  closed  doors  for 
hours,  or  when  she  went  lonely  walks  through  the 
woods  or  fields.  She  withdrew  herself  more  and 
more  from  the  society  that  sought  her,  and  got  a 
habit  of  consorting  with  poor  old  Nehemiah  as  he 
dug  his  potatoes  or  gathered  his  beans,  and  seemed 
to  find  him  a  relief  and  shelter.  Heaven  knows 
what  they  talked  of.  Doubtless,  as  she  followed 
him  from  one  potato  hill  to  another,  and  listened  to 
his  discourse,  he  admired  her  taste  for  serious 
conversation,  and  was  obscurely  touched  that  such 
resplendent  beauty  should  be  so  meekly  contented 
with  his  company.  She  no  longer  teased  Ben  Wood 
ward,  whose  open  secret  of  a  passion  for  her  she 
used  to  recognize  so  freely;  she  was  the  boy's  very 
humble  servant  in  manner;  and  to  Rachel's  effi 
ciency  and  constancy  she  was  the  stricken  thrall. 
It  was  touching  to  see  how  willingly  subservient 
she  was  to  the  girl,  and  how  glad  she  was  to  be  of 
any  use  that  Rachel  could  think  of.  One  night, 
after  they  had  sat  a  long  time  silent  by  the  taper's 
glimmer  while  Easton  slept,  she  suddenly  caught 

179 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Rachel  by  the  arm  and  whispered,  "Why  don't 
you  say  it?  How  can  you  keep  thinking  it  and 
thinking  it,  and  never  say  it?  For  pity's  sake, 
speak  this  once,  and  tell  me  that  you  know  I  did 
it  all,  and  that  you  despise  me!" 

"I  don't  judge  you,"  said  Rachel;  "and  I  have 
no  right  to  despise  anyone.  You  know,  yourself, 
whether  you  are  to  blame  for  anything." 

"Do  you  think  I  acted  heartlessly  that  day  when 
I  made  fun  of  him — there  in  the  schoolhouse  ? " 

"I  did  think  so,  then." 

"Do  you  now?    Do  you  believe  I'm  sorry ?" 

"How  can  I  tell?  You  seemed  unfeeling  then, 
but  I  don't  believe  you  were;  and  you  seem  sorry 
now— 

"And  you  don't  believe  I  am!  Oh  me,  I  wonder 
if  I  am!  Rachel,  you  do  believe  I  know  how  to 
feel,  don't  you?" 

"How  can  you  ask  such  a  thing  as  that?"  re 
turned  the  girl  in  a  startled  accent. 

"I  wonder  if  I  do!  It  seems  to  me  that  I  know 
how  to  feel,  but  that  I  never  feel.  It  seems  to  me 
that  I  am  always  acting  out  the  thing  I  ought  to 
be  or  want  to  be,  and  never  being  it.  Don't  trust 
me,  Rachel — not  even  now;  I  think  that  I'm  very 
remorseful  and  sorry,  but  who  knows  if  I  am?  I 
keep  asking  myself  what  I  should  do  if  he  were  to 
die — what  would  become  of  me.  I  try  to  scare  my 
self  about  it;  but  my  soul  seems  to  be  in  a  perfect 
torpor;  I  can't  stir  it.  Rachel,  Rachel!  I  did  try 
to  make  him  in  love  with  me — all  I  could.  There 
was  such  a  deadly  charm  in  it — his  perfect  faith  in 

1 80 


MRS.  FARRELL 

me,  whatever  I  said  or  did.  But  it  frightened  me 
at  last,  too;  and  I  didn't  know  what  to  do ;  and  that 
day  when  I  behaved  so  about  him,  I  was  frantic; 
if  I  hadn't  made  fun  of  him,  the  thought  of  what  I 
had  done  would  have  killed  me.  But  I  honored 
him  all  the  time.  Oh,  he  was  my  true,  true  lover; 
and  when  I  thought  how  recklessly  I  had  gone  on, 
it  almost  drove  me  wild.  Rachel,  do  you  know  what 
I  did?"  She  poured  out  the  whole  story,  and  then 
she  said,  "But  now  I  seem  not  to  be  able  to  care 
any  more.  It's  all  like  a  dream:  it's  some  one  run 
ning  and  running  after  me,  and  I  am  laughing  and 
beckoning  him  on,  and  all  of  a  sudden  there  he  lies 
without  help  or  motion;  it  can't  give  him  any 
pleasure  to  see  me,  now;  I  can't  do  anything  for 
him  that  some  one  else  can't  do  better,  or  that  he 
won't  be  as  glad  of  from  another.  It's  as  if  he  were 
in  prison,  and  I  sat  at  the  door  outside,  waiting  in 
this  horrible  lethargy.  When  he  comes  out,  what 
will  he  say  to  me?  I  think  that  I  should  die  if  he 
upbraided  me;  but  if  he  didn't  I  should  go  mad. 
No,  no!  That's  what  some  other  woman  would  do. 
Rachel,  isn't  it  awful  to  bring  all  these  things  home 
to  yourself,  and  yet  not  suffer  from  them?  Oh,  but 
I  care — I  care  because  I  can't  care.  My  heart  lies 
like  a  stone  in  my  breast,  and  I'm  furious  because 
I  can't  break  it,  or  hurt  it.  Rachel,  if  you  give  way 
before  me  I  don't  know  where  I  shall  end.  You 
must  never  yield  to  me,  no  matter  what  mood  I'm 
in,  or  else  I  shall  lose  the  one  real  friend  I  have  in 
the- world — the  only  one  I  can  be  myself  to,  if  there 
is  really  anything  of  me." 

181 


MRS.  FARRELL 

As  she  ceased  to  speak,  Gilbert  came  in  to  take 
his  place  for  the  night.  He  asked  Rachel  in  a  low 
voice  what  was  next  to  be  done,  but  he  took  no 
notice  of  Mrs.  Farrell  save  to  give  her  a  slight  nod. 

No  one  else  treated  her  with  coldness  now;  but 
in  his  manner  toward  her  there  still  lingered  a  trace 
of  resentment.  It  had  a  tone  of  irony,  to  which 
she  submitted  meekly,  like  one  resolved  to  bear  a 
just  penalty;  and  if  there  were  times  when  he  for 
got  to  be  severe  and  she  forgot  to  be  sad,  then 
afterward  he  was  the  more  satirical  and  she  the 
more  patient.  It  began  to  be  said  by  some  of  the 
ladies  that  Mr.  Gilbert  had  rather  a  capricious 
temper;  but  he  had  his  defenders,  who  maintained 
that  he  was  merely  run  down  with  worry  and  con 
finement  over  his  friend. 

One  day  he  came  into  Mrs.  Gilbert's  room,  and 
found  Mrs.  Farrell  with  her.  He  offered  to  go  away 
if  he  had  burst  upon  a  confidential  interview, 
seeing  that  they  fell  silent  at  his  coming,  but  Mrs. 
Farrell  said  that  they  had  just  finished  their  talk, 
and  that  now  she  was  going. 

Gilbert  did  not  sit  down  after  he  had  closed  the 
door  upon  her,  but  took  two  or  three  lounging  turns 
about  the  room.  "It's  very  pleasant  to  see  you  and 
Mrs.  Farrell  such  friends,  Susan,"  he  said,  at  last. 
"It's  really  millennial.  But  which  is  the  wolf  and 
which  is  the  lamb?" 

He  laughed  his  short  laugh,  and  Mrs.  Gilbert 
answered,  nervously,  "You  know  very  well  I  told 
you,  the  first  time  we  talked  of  her,  that  I  liked  her." 

"You  said  she  fascinated  you.  The  spell  seems 
182 


MRS.  FARRELL 

to  have  deepened.  You  used  to  find  some  little  im 
perfections  in  her." 

"Well,  and  who  pretends  that  I  don't  see  them 
now?" 

"Oh,  not  I.  But  I'm  affected  to  see  you  so 
lenient  to  them  of  late.  Did  you  know  that  she  was 
a  person  of  strong  religious  convictions?" 

"What  do  you  mean,  William?" 

"Nothing.  She  has  found  out  that  Easton  and 
I  are  in  a  sort  of  suspense  about  such  matters,  and 
she  says  it  is  terrible.  She  can  only  account  for  our 
being  able  to  endure  it  by  supposing  that  men  are 
different,  more  self-centered,  not  so  dependent  as 
women.  She  considers  the  Woodwards  a  high 
example  of  the  efficacy  of  a  religious  training  in  the 
formation  of  character.  She  says  she  is  not  like 
Rachel;  that  she  has  an  undisciplined  nature,  and 
was  too  irregularly  trained,  first  in  her  father's 
belief  and  then  in  a  convent.  What  was  her  father's 
belief?  I  suppose  some  sort  of  marine  Methodism 
of  the  speaking-trumpet  pitch.  She  wants  my  ad 
vice  as  to  a  course  of  reading  in  the  modern  philos 
ophy;  she  thinks  every  Christian  ought  to  know 
how  his  faith  is  being  assailed." 

Gilbert  stopped  in  his  walk  and  looked  gravely 
at  his  sister-in-law,  who  gave  a  troubled  sigh. 

"What  right  have  you  to  suppose  she  isn't  per 
fectly  in  earnest  now,  William?" 

"None;  I  think  she  thinks  she  is." 

"She  has  shown  so  much  more  character,  so 
much  more  heart,  than  I  ever  supposed  she  had,  in 
this  affair,  that  I'm  glad  to  believe  we  were  mis- 


MRS.   FARRELL 

taken  about  her  in  several  essential  ways.  The 
fact  is,  I  always  did  have  a  sort  of  sneaking  fondness 
for  her,  and  now  I'm  determined  to  indulge  it;  so 
you  needn't  come  to  laugh  about  her  in  my  sleeve, 
William.  I'm  an  ardent  Farrellite,  and  have  been 
ever  since  I  found  out  that  she  was  in  love  with 
your  friend.  Don't  you  think  she's  very  devoted 
to  him?" 

"Oh,  I  dare  say.  He's  not  in  a  state  for  devotion 
to  tell  upon,  exactly." 

Mrs.  Gilbert  looked  baffled.  Presently  she 
asked,  "Are  she  and  Rachel  Woodward  as  good 
friends  as  ever?" 

"How  do  I  know?"  returned  Gilbert,  resuming 
his  walk.  "That's  a  curious  girl,  Susan.  One 
meets  enough  good  women  in  the  world;  I've 
always  been  able  to  believe  in  them,"  he  said,  stop 
ping  at  Mrs.  Gilbert's  side  to  take  her  hand  and 
kiss  it;  "in  fact,  the  worst  women  seem  pretty 
good,  if  one  will  only  compare  them  with  oneself; 
but  I  don't  think  I've  understood,  before,  just  the 
sort  of  feminine  goodness  that  the  unbroken  tradi 
tion  of  your  New  England  religiousness  produces. 
Puritanism  has  fairly  died  out  of  the  belief — I  don't 
care  what  people  profess  to  believe — but  in  such  a 
girl  as  Rachel  Woodward,  all  that  was  good  in  it 
seems  to  survive  in  the  life.  She's  more  like  Easton 
than  any  other  human  being  I  know;  they're  both 
unerringly  sincere;  they're  both  faithful  through 
thick  and  thin  to  what  they  think  is  right;  only 
you  can't  help  feeling  that  there's  something  Quix 
otic  in  Easton's  noblest  moods,  and  that  he  has  an 

184 


MRS.  FARRELL 

arrogant  scorn  of  meaner  morals  than  his  own. 
But  her  purity  doesn't  seem  to  judge  anything  but 
itself,  and  her  goodness  and  veracity  always  seem 
to  refer  themselves  to  something  outside  of  her. 
You  can  see  before  she  speaks  how  she  is  consider 
ing  her  phrase,  and  choosing  just  the  words  that 
shall  give  her  mind  with  scriptural  scruple  against 
superfluity ;  if  you  know  the  facts,  you  know  what 
she  will  say,  for  she's  almost  divinely  without 
variableness  or  shadow  of  turning  where  the  truth 
is  concerned.  It's  awful;  it  makes  me  hang  my 
head  for  shame,  to  watch  the  working  of  that  vestal 
soul  of  hers.  And  with  all  this  inflexibility — you 
might  call  it  angularity — of  rectitude,  she  has  a 
singular  charm,  a  distinctly  feminine  charm." 

"Oh,  indeed!    And  what  is  her  charm?" 

"Poh,  Susan!"  said  Gilbert,  looking  askance  at 
her.  "Don't  make  me  think  you  can  be  guilty  of 
bad  taste." 

"Oh,  well;  I  won't,  I  won't,  my  dear  boy!  I 
didn't  mean  to,"  cried  Mrs.  Gilbert.  "It  was 
rather  foolish  in  me  to  interrupt  you." 

"I  can't  call  it  an  interruption,  exactly;  I  had 
got  to  the  end  of  my  say." 

He  went  off  to  Easton's  room,  where  he  found 
Rachel  Woodward  putting  things  in  order  for  the 
evening,  and  he  smiled  to  see  with  what  conscien 
tious  regard  she  preserved  Mrs.  Farrell's  arrange 
ments,  as  matters  having  a  sacred  claim  to  which 
no  reforms  of  her  own  could  have  pretended,  and 
yet  managed  somehow  to  imbue  all  that  pic- 
turesqueness  with  a  quality  of  homelike  comfort. 

185 


MRS.   FARRELL 

He  nodded  to  her,  and  said  he  was  going  out  for  a 
short  walk. 

On  the  road  he  overtook  Mrs.  Farrell,  who  was 
moving  rather  sadly  along  by  herself.  Her  face 
brightened  as  she  turned  and  saw  him,  but  she 
waited  for  him  to  speak. 

"Where  are  your  inseparable  comrades?"  he 
asked. 

"Oh!"  said  she.  "Jenny  Alden  isn't  very  well, 
this  afternoon,  and  Miss  Jewett  has  gone  over  with 
Mrs.  Stevenson  to  Quopsaug." 

"Quop —  what?"  asked  Gilbert,  stopping  short. 

"Quopsaug,"  repeated  Mrs.  Farrell,  simply. 
"Did  you  never  hear  of  it?" 

"No,  I  never  heard  of  Quopsaug.  Is  it — vege 
table  or  mineral?" 

"It's  vegetable,  I  believe.  At  least  it  vegetates. 
It's  a  place — a  huddle  of  unpainted  wooden  houses 
in  a  little  hollow  at  the  foot  of  Scatticong,  on  the 
east  side.  It  has  a  Folly  and  it  has  a  Bazar.  But 
I  wonder  Quopsaug  hasn't  come  up  long  ago  in  our 
poverty-stricken  conversation.  I  suppose  everyone 
must  have  thought  everybody  else  had  talked  you 
to  death  about  it." 

"No,"  said  Gilbert.  "What  do  people  go  to 
Quopsaug  for?" 

"To  see  the  Folly — that's  the  storekeeper's 
mansion;  and  to  buy  things  out  of  the  Bazar — 
that's  his  store.  And  to  wheedle  the  inhabitants 
generally  out  of  their  spinning-wheels;  at  least 
that's  what  Mrs.  Stevenson's  gone  for  to-day." 

"And  is  Quopsaug  a  nickname?" 
1 86 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"No;  it's  one  of  those  musical  Indian  names 
we're  so  fond  of  in  New  England.  The  people 
adopted  it  thirty  or  forty  years  ago,  when  they 
started  a  cotton  mill — which  failed — there.  The 
place  used  to  be  called  East  Leander,  but  they  re- 
christened  it  Quopsaug,  after  a  chief  who  scalped 
the  first  settler,  and  then  became  a  praying  Indian, 
and  lies  over  there  in  the  Quopsaug  graveyard,  under 
a  Latin  epitaph.  You  ought  to  go  to  Quopsaug." 

"I  must,"  said  Gilbert,  absently;  the  talk 
dropped,  and  they  walked  on  in  silence  till  they 
came  to  a  rise  in  the  road  overlooking  a  swampy 
meadow.  In  the  midst  of  this  stood  a  slim,  con 
sumptive  young  maple  in  a  hectic  of  premature 
autumnal  tints,  and  with  that  conscious  air  which 
the  first  colored  trees  have. 

I  suppose  you  would  like  a  branch  of  that."  said 
Gilbert,  "for  your  vase." 

"Why,  yes,"  assented  Mrs.  Farrell.  When  he 
brought  it  to  her,  she  had  turned  about  and  was 
facing  homeward.  "An  olive  branch?"  she  asked, 
with  a  tentative  little  burlesque. 

"If  you  like,"  said  Gilbert,  with  a  laugh  that  was 
not  gay.  "It  isn't  quite  the  color;  but  it's  olive 
branch  enough  for  all  the  peace  you  probably  mean, 
and  it's  sufficiently  angry-looking  for  war  when  you 
happen  to  feel  like  making  trouble  again." 

The  leaves  were  mainly  of  a  pallid  yellow,  but 
their  keen  points  and  edges  were  red  as  if  dipped  in 
blood.  She  flung  the  bough  away  and  started  for 
ward,  dashing  the  back  of  her  hand  passionately 
across  her  eyes. 


MRS.   FARRELL 

It  was  as  though  he  had  struck  her.  He  made 
haste  to  come  up  with  her.  "Mrs.  Parrell,"  he  fal 
tered,  dismayed  at  the  words  that  had  escaped  him, 
"I've  been  atrociously  rude." 

"Oh,  not  unusually  so!"  she  said,  darting  a  look 
upon  him  from  gleaming  eyes,  while  her  lips 
quivered.  "You  seem  to  feel  authorized  to  give  me 
pain  whenever  you  like.  You  needn't  do  so  much 
to  make  me  know  the  difference  between  yourself 
and  Mr.  Easton." 

Gilbert's  face  darkened.  "Upon  my  word,"  he 
said,  "I  think  the  less  you  say  about  that  the 
better." 

"Why?"  she  retorted,  trembling  all  over  with 
excitement.  "You  force  me  every  moment  to  re 
member  his  magnanimity  and  generosity;  all  your 
words  and  acts  teach  me  how  friendless  I  am  with 
out  him.  He  never  could  believe  so  ill  of  a  woman 
as  you  do;  but  if  the  case  were  changed,  I  don't 
think  he  would  choose  the  part  of  my  torturer. 
And  you  are  his  friend!"  She  broke,  and  the  tears 
fell  down  her  face. 

Gilbert  walked  speechless  beside  her.  "It's  true, ' ' 
he  said  at  last,  "Easton  is  a  better  man  than  I; 
he's  a  manlier  man,  if  you  like — or  if  you  mean 
that." 

She  did  not  speak,  but  she  slightly  slackened  her 
fierce  pace,  and  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  him  to 
speak  again. 

"But  I  didn't  know  that  I  had  been  giving  you  so 
much  pain.  I'm  sorry — I'm  ashamed — with  all  my 
heart.  I  ask  your  pardon." 

188 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Yes,  yes!  I  know  how  you  say  all  that.  Oh, 
I  know  the  superior  stand  you  take!  I  know  how 
you  say  to  yourself,  'It's  my  business  to  treat  her 
handsomely  for  East  on 's  sake,  whatever  I  think  of 
her.  Come,  I'll  do  the  right  thing,  at  any  rate!' 
You  ask  my  pardon.  Thanks,  thanks;  I  give  it  in 
all  meekness.  Yes,  let  there  be  a  truce  between  us. 
I  can't  choose  but  be  glad  to  be  let  alone.  Will  you 
walk  on  and  leave  me  now,  Mr.  Gilbert,  or  let  me 
leave  you?" 

"No,  I  can't  part  from  you  so.  Let  it  be  peace, 
not  a  truce.  I  make  no  such  reservations  as  you 
imagine.  I  beseech  you  to  pardon  my  brutality 
and  to  forget  my  rudeness." 

She  halted,  and  impulsively  stretched  out  her 
hand  toward  him,  and  then  suddenly  withdrew  it 
before  he  could  take  it.  "Wait,"  she  said,  seri 
ously.  "I  can't  be  friends  with  you  yet,  till  I  know 
whether  you  really  think  me  worthy.  If  you  don't, 
you  shall  have  no  forgiveness  of  mine.  You  must 
be  more  than  sorry  that  you  hurt  my  feelings." 

"I  will  be  as  much  sorry,  and  about  as  many 
things,  as  you  like." 

"Oh,  don't  try  to  turn  it  into  a  joke!  You  know 
what  I  mean.  Did  Mr.  Easton  tell  you  what  I  told 
him  to  say  about  the  trouble  between  you?  Did 
he  lay  the  whole  blame  upon  me?  Did  he  say  that 
I  did  it  willfully  and  recklessly,  because  your  friend 
ship  piqued  me,  and  because — because — though  I 
never  thought  of  that  before! — I  was  jealous  of  it?" 

Gilbert  did  not  smile  at  the  slight  confusion  of 
ideas,  but  answered,  gravely,  "Easton  was  not  the 

189 


MRS.  FARRELL 

man  to  lay  blame  upon  you  —  he  would  like  it  too 
well  himself.  Besides,  I  was  unfair  with  him,  and 
gave  him  no  chance  to  speak  in  your  defense." 

"Oh,  how  could  you  be  so  cruel  as  that?  He  was 
so  true  to  you  !  I  should  think  you  never  could  for 
give  yourself  for  that.  You  ought  to  have  heard 
him  praise  you.  He  told  me  everything.  Yes,  you 
did  act  grandly.  But  he  could  have  done  as  much 
for  you,  and  more,  or  he  never  would  have  suffered 
your  self-sacrifice." 

"  There  is  only  one  Easton  in  the  world,"  said 
Gilbert,  gloomily;  and  he  went  on  to  talk  of  Eas 
ton  's  character,  his  noble  eccentricities,  his  bene 
ficent  life,  and  his  heroic  ideals.  He  spoke  with  a 
certain  effect  of  self-compulsion  very  different 
from  the  light-hearted  liking  with  which  he  had 
once  before  talked  with  her  of  Easton,  but  she  lis 
tened  reverently,  and  at  the  end  she  said  with  a 
sigh:  "No,  I  see  that  I  didn't  know  him.  Why,  I 
hadn't  even  imagined  it!  Why  should  he  care  for 


Gilbert  did  not  undertake  to  answer  the  question, 
and  she  said,  "But  I  am  so  glad  you  have  told  me 
so  much  about  him.  How  proud  I  shall  be  to  sur 
prise  him  with  it  all!" 

Gilbert  made  no  sign  of  sharing  her  rapture,  but 
she  seemed  not  to  heed  him. 

They  were  very  near  the  house,  now,  and  she 
turned  on  him  an  upward,  sidelong  look,  as  her 
lower  stature  obliged,  and  asked,  "And  you  really 
think  me  worthy  to  be  sorry?" 

"Yes,"  said  Gilbert,  with  a  heavy  breath. 
190 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Then  I'll  forget  your  cruelty,"  she  said;  "but 
don't  do  it  any  more."  She  dropped  him  a  little 
nod,  and  went  into  the  house  without  him.  He 
stood  there  watching  the  black  doorway  through 
which  she  had  vanished,  but  it  was  as  if  he  had  fol 
lowed  her,  so  wholly  had  all  sense  fled  after  her  out 
of  his  face.  He  stirred  painfully  from  his  posture, 
and  cast  his  eye  upward  at  Easton's  room.  The  cold 
window  met  his  glance  with  a  gleam  from  which  he 
shrank,  with  a  sudden  shock  at  the  heart,  as  though 
he  had  caught  Easton's  eye,  and  he  turned  and 
walked  away  into  the  nightfall. 


Chapter  XI 

E ASTON  began  to  show  signs  of  decided  con 
valescence.  Day  by  day  he  became  more 
susceptible  of  the  kindnesses  which  his 
sympathizers  yearned  to  lavish  upon  him,  all  the 
more  ardently  for  being  so  long  held  aloof  by  the 
certainty  that  the  best  thing  they  could  do  was  to 
let  him  alone;  the  ladies  got  out  their  recipes  for 
sick-room  delicacies  again,  and  broths  and  broils 
were  debated.  One  day  he  sat  up  in  a  chair  to  have 
his  bed  made,  and  then  a  great  wave  of  rejoicing 
ran  through  the  house.  Mrs.  Farrell  created  a 
wine  jelly  which,  when  it  was  turned  out  of  the 
mold  upon  a  plate,  was  as  worshipfully  admired  as 
if  it  had  been  the  successful  casting  in  bronze  of 
some  great  work  of  art. 

Her  spirits  had  begun  to  rise ;  that  day  she  moved 
as  if  on  air,  and  as  he  grew  better  and  better  she 
put  off  the  moral  and  material  tokens  of  her  linger 
ing  bondage  to  fear.  For  some  time  she  had  suf 
fered  herself  to  wear  those  great  hoops  of  Etruscan 
gold  in  her  ears;  now  she  replaced  her  penitential 
slippers  and  sober  shoes  with  worldly  boots;  she 
blossomed  again  in  the  rich  colors  that  became  her; 
on  the  following  Sunday  she  celebrated  her  release 
in  a  silk  that  insulted  her  past  captivity,  and  sang 

192 


MRS.   FARRELL 

for  joy  as  she  swooped  through  the  house  in  it. 
On  Monday  she  bought  out  the  small  stock  of  wor 
steds  at  the  West  Pekin  store,  and  sat  matching 
them  in  her  lap  when  Gilbert  came  out  upon  the 
piazza..  He  stopped  to  look  at  her,  and  she  asked 
him  if  he  had  any  taste  in  colors.  "Men  have,  a 
great  deal  oftener  than  women  will  allow,"  she  said. 
"At  least  they  are  quite  apt  to  have  inspirations  in 
color." 

"I  don't  believe  I  have,"  answered  Gilbert,  still 
looking  at  her  radiance  and  not  at  the  worsteds. 
"I  lived  long  and  happily  without  knowing  some 
colors  from  others  by  name." 

Mrs.  Farrell  laughed.  "Oh,  I  didn't  mean  the 
names.  Women  are  glibber  than  men  with  those. 
But  you'd  have  been  able  to  criticize  the  effect, 
wouldn't  you?  You'd  have  known  that  blue 
wouldn't  do  for  a  brunette,  if  you'd  seen  it  on  her?" 

"I'm  not  so  sure,"  said  Gilbert. 

"Why,  look!"  cried  Mrs.  Farrell,  taking  up  a 
delicate  shade  of  blue  and  holding  it  against  one 
cheek,  while  she  fixed  her  eyes  upon  his  with  busi 
nesslike  preoccupation.  "There!  don't  you  see 
how  we  take  the  life  out  of  each  other?  Don't  you 
see  that  it  perfectly  kills  me?" 

"Well,  I  don't  know.  I  should  say  that  the 
worsted  was  getting  the  worst  of  it." 

"Worsted  and  worsted;  a  pun  or  an  opinion?" 
demanded  Mrs.  Farrell,  still  holding  the  color  to 
her  cheek,  and  her  eyes  on  his. 

"Oh,  either;  one's  as  good  as  the  other." 

"I  don't  believe  you  meant  either.  I'm  sorry 
13  193 


MRS.  FARRELL 

you  can't  help  me  about  matching  these  wools, 
and  I've  a  great  mind  to  make  use  of  you  in  another 
way.  But  I  don't  suppose  you  would  do  it,"  she 
said,  glancing  up  at  him  as  she  straightened  the 
skeins  of  yarn  by  slipping  them  over  her  two  hands. 

"What  do  you  wish  to  do?" 

"Why,  I  wish  to  wind  these  skeins  into  little 
balls,  and—" 

"Me  to  hold  them,  as  you're  doing,  whilst  you 
wind?  I  don't  mind  that." 

"Really?  I  think  it's  the  silliest  position  in  the 
world  for  a  man;  and  I  can't  let  you.  No,  no; 
you  shall  not." 

"Yes,  but  I  will.  Come.  I  wish  to  show  you 
that  my  manly  dignity  can  rise  superior  to  holding 
worsteds." 

He  took  up  a  skein  and  stretched  it  on  his  hands ; 
she  loosened  a  thread  and  began  to  wind;  both 
with  gloomy  brows.  When  she  had  half  done,  she 
flung  down  the  ball,  and  burst  into  a  laugh.  "No, 
no;  you  can't  face  it  out.  You  look  silly  in  spite 
of  that  noble  frown.  How  do  you  suppose  you 
appear  to  those  ladies  down  there  under  the  trees, 
with  your  hands  raised  in  that  gesture  of  stage- 
supplication?  You  look  as  if  you  were  imploring 
me  for  your  life — or  something ;  and  here  I  am  mak 
ing  all  these  cabalistic  motions,"  she  resumed  her 
winding,  "as  if  I  were  weaving  a  spell  around  you ! 
Do  let  us  stop  it!  And  I'll  get  Miss  Jewett  to  help 


me." 


"No,  go  on,"  said  Gilbert.    "If  you  offer  to  stop, 
I  shall  clasp  my  hands!" 

194 


MRS.  FARRELL 

' 'Oh,  oh!"  shouted  Mrs.  Farrell.  "Don't,  for 
pity's  sake!  Was  ever  a  poor  sorceress  so  at  her 
victim's  mercy  before?  This  skein  is  nearly  done. 
Will  you  put  down  your  hands,  you  cruel  object  of 
my  unhallowed  arts?" 

"I  will,  if  you'll  let  me  put  them  up  again,  and 
help  finish  the  other  skeins.  If  you  don't  consent, 
I'll  keep  holding  them  so." 

"Well,  then  I'll  leave  you  in  that  interesting 
attitude." 

"If  you  dare  to  rise,  I'll  follow  you  all  about  in 
it." 

"Oh  dear  me!  I  really  believe  you  would. 
There,  take  up  another  skein." 

"No,  you  must  put  it  on,  yourself;  I've  just  got 
my  hands  in  the  right  places." 

"But  you  said  you'd  put  them  down  if  I'd  let 
you  put  them  up  again,"  lamented  Mrs.  Farrell. 

"I've  changed  my  mind.  I  said  that  before  I 
perceived  that  I  had  you  in  my  power.  If  you 
don't  hurry,  I'll  exaggerate  the  attitude.  Quick!" 

She  was  laughing  so  that  she  could  hardly  ar 
range  the  yarn  upon  the  framework  so  rigidly  pre 
sented  to  her. 

"Don't  hold  your  thumbs  like  sticks,"  she  be 
sought  him.  "Have  a  little  flexibility,  if  you  have 
no  pity.  It's  some  satisfaction  to  think  you  do 
look  foolish." 

"I  have  the  consolation  of  suspecting  that  you 
feel  so.  I'm  quite  willing  to  do  the  looking." 

Mrs.  Farrell  said  nothing,  but  swiftly  wound  the 
yam  upon  the  ball,  and,  "Don't  hurry!"  com- 

I9S 


MRS.  FARRELL 

manded  Gilbert.  "I'm  not  going  to  put  my  hands 
down  till  I  like,  anyway.  So  you  may  as  well  take 
your  time." 

"Oh,  Mr.  Gilbert,"  pleaded  Mrs.  Farrell.  "How 
can  you  threaten  me,  when  I'm  so  meekly  letting 
you  have  your'own  way!  I  never  should  have  sup 
posed  you  were  that  kind  of  man." 

"Neither  should  I,"  said  Gilbert.  "This  is  the 
first  opportunity  I've  had  to  play  the  tyrant  to  one 
of  your  amiable  sex,  and  I'm  determined  to  abuse 
it." 

"Oh,  that's  a  likely  story!  With  that  conceited 
air  of  yours,  when  you  are  so  good  as  to  address  a 
woman !  Don't  be  a  humbug,  if  you  are  a  faithless 
despot." 

"And  don't  you  employ  harsh  language  in  ad 
dressing  me,  Mrs.  Farrell,  or  I'll  sit  here  all  day 
with  my  hands  outstretched  to  you." 

"All  day?  Oh — happy  thought!  Wind  very 
slowly  and  tire  him  out!" 

"Do!  I  could  stop  here  until  I  changed  into  a 
mere  figure  in  a  bas-relief — a  profile  and  the  back 
of  a  lifted  hand ;  and  you  a  classic  shape  intent  upon 
the  flying  thread—" 

"That's  not  fair,  Mr.  Gilbert.  To  make  remarks 
upon  me  when  you  know  I  can't  help  myself." 

"Don't  you  like  to  have  remarks  made  upon 
you?" 

"Not  when  I  can't  help  myself." 

"Why  not?  I  haven't  forbidden  you  to  answer 
back." 

"But  you  would,  if  my  answers  didn't  suit  you. 
196 


MRS.   FARRELL 

How  is  it,  if  you  don't  know  anything  about  colors, 
that  you  dress  in  such  very  tolerable  taste?" 

' '  Do  I  ?  Mrs.  Farrell,  don't  take  advantage  of  my 
helplessness  to  flatter  me!  I  suppose  it's  my 
tailor's  taste — which  I  always  go  against.  And 
then,  it's  New  York." 

"Yes,  New  York  is  well  dressed,"  sighed  Mrs. 
Farrell.  "Oh  dear  me!  The  style  of  some  New 
York  girls  that  I've  seen!  I  suppose  men  can't  feel 
it  as  we  do." 

"Don't  be  so  sure  of  that.  We  can't  give  any 
but  the  elementary  names  of  things  that  a  woman 
has  on,  but  I  don't  believe  the  subtlest  effect  of  a 
dress  is  ever  lost  upon  men;  and  I  believe  the  soul 
of  any  man  of  imagination  is  as  much  taken  with 
style  in  dressing  as  with  beauty.  Americans  all 
adore  it — perhaps  because  it's  so  characteristic  of 
American  women  that  they  seem  almost  to  have 
invented  it.  It's  a  curious  thing — something 
different  from  beauty,  something  different  from 
grace,  something  more  charming  than  either,  and 
as  various  as  both.  I  should  say  it  was  the  expres 
sion  of  personal  character,  and  that  American 
women  have  more  style  than  any  other  women 
because  they  have  more  freedom,  and  utter  them 
selves  in  dry-goods  more  fearlessly." 

Mrs.  Farrell  stopped  winding  the  yarn  a  moment, 
and  instinctively  cast  down  her  eyes  over  her 
draperies.  He  smiled. 

"For  shame!"  she  cried,  indignantly,  while  her 
eyes  dimmed  with  mortification  at  her  self -betrayal. 
But  she  boldly  grappled  with  the  situation.  "Did 

197 


MRS.   FARRELL 

you  think  I  was  thinking  you  thought  me  stylish? 
I  know  I  am  so;  I  had  no  need  to  think  that.  I 
was  thinking  that  if  ever  you  left  the  law  and  fol 
lowed  the  true  bent  of  your  genius,  New  York 
ladies  needn't  go  to  Worth  for  their  dresses." 

" Isn't  that  an  unnecessarily  elaborate  bit  of  in 
sult,  considering  that  I  hadn't  said  a  word  to  pro 
voke  it?" 

"You  smiled." 

"Why,  you've  been  laughing  all  the  time." 

"But  I  wasn't  laughing  at  you." 

"Whom  were  you  laughing  at?" 

"I  was  laughing  at  myself." 

"Well,  I  merely  smiled  at  you." 

But  Mrs.  Farrell  was  plainly  hurt  past  jesting 
for  the  present.  She  wound  furiously  at  the 
worsted,  and  they  both  kept  silence. 

At  last  Gilbert  asked,  "What  is  all  this  yarn 
for?" 

"To  knit  a  smoking-cap  for  Mr.  Easton,"  she 
said,  coldly,  and  then  neither  spoke  again.  Pres 
ently  she  caught  a  half-finished  skein  from  his 
hand,  tossed  the  balls  and  skeins  together  in  her 
lap,  and,  gathering  them  up,  swept  indoors,  leaving 
him  planted  where  he  had  sat  confronting  her. 

In  spite  of  the  careless  gayety  of  his  banter, 
Gilbert  had  worn  a  look  that  was  neither  easy  nor 
joyous.  He  did  not  seem  much  irritated  by  her 
excessive  retaliation,  but  presently  rose  and  walked 
listlessly  up  to  the  village  to  get  his  letters,  and 
when  he  came  back  he  went  to  his  sister-in-law's 
room  with  a  letter  which  he  showed  her. 

198 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Shall  you  go?"  she  asked,  eagerly. 

"I  don't  know.  I  don't  know  why  I'm  not  on 
fire  to  go,  but  I  don't  happen  to  be  so.  There's  a 
day  or  two  for  thinking  it  over.  If  it  were  not  for 
Easton— " 

"He's  a  long  while  getting  well,"  said  Mrs.  Gil 
bert  with  an  impatient  sigh;  "I  don't  see  why  he's 
so  slow  about  it." 

"Well,  Susan,"  languidly  reasoned  Gilbert, 
"you've  been  about  fifteen  years  yourself  getting 
well,  and  you  haven't  quite  finished  yet.  You 
can't  consistently  complain  of  a  few  weeks,  more  or 
less,  in  Easton.  I  dare  say  he  would  be  well  at  once, 
if  he  could;  but  it  isn't  a  matter  that  he  can  hurry, 
exactly." 

"No,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert.  "But  aren't  you  los 
ing  a  great  deal  of  time  here,  William?  You 
came  for  two  weeks,  and  you've  stayed  nearly 
six.  Don't  you  think  Easton  could  get  on  without 
you,  now?" 

"Why,  considering  that  Easton  came  here  be 
cause  he  thought  I'd  like  to  have  him,  when  I  was 
merely  a  little  under  the  weather,  I  don't  think  it 
would  be  quite  the  thing  for  me  to  go  off  now,  and 
leave  him  before  he's  fairly  on  his  legs." 

"That's  true,"  sighed  Mrs.  Gilbert.  "And  I'm 
glad  to  have  you  so  faithful  to  your  friend,  William. 
I'm  sure  you  never  could  forgive  yourself  if  you 
were  recreant  to  him  in  the  slightest  thing.  Your 
friendship  has  sacred  claims  upon  you  both.  I 
have  sometimes  thought  it  was  a  little  too  ro 
mantic,  but  it's  a  great  thing  to  have  the  highest 

199 


MRS.  FARRELL 

standard  in  such  matters,  and  you  could  never  let 
your  fidelity  be  less  than  East  on 's." 

Gilbert  looked  at  her  and  pulled  his  mustache 
uneasily,  but  Mrs.  Gilbert  kept  her  eyes  upon  the 
sewing  she  had  in  hand.  "You  and  Mrs.  Farrell 
seem  to  be  friends  at  present.  I  have  heard  of  your 
holding  worsted  for  her  to  wind,  just  now.  The 
ladies  who  saw  you  at  a  little  distance  thought  it  a 
very  picturesque  group,  and  seemed  grateful  for 
the  topic  you  had  given  them.  They  talked  about 
it  a  good  deal.  I  suppose  it  was  picturesque — at 
least  her  part  of  it.  I  don't  think  manly  grace  is  at 
its  best  under  such  circumstances,  though  I  dare 
say  you  weren't  posing  for  spectators." 

"I  had  no  quarrel  with  Mrs.  Farrell/'  said  Gil 
bert,  choosing  to  ignore  the  other  points. 

"No?  I  thought  there  seemed  to  be  a  little  cold 
ness  at  one  time." 

"Perhaps  the  shyness  of  comparative  strangers, 
Mrs.  Gilbert." 

"William,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert,  "I  wish  you  would 
talk  seriously  with  me  a  moment." 

"Then  you  must  start  a  serious  subject.  You 
can't  expect  me  to  be  very  earnest  about  genteel 
comedy,  or  even  melodrama." 

"Do  you  mean  that  she's  always  playing  a  part? 
Why,  don't  you  believe — " 

"Excuse  me,  Susan,"  said  Gilbert,  "I  haven't 
formulated  any  creed  on  that  subject,  and  I'd  rather 
you'd  make  your  conversation  a  little  less  Socratic, 
this  morning,  if  it's  quite  the  same  to  you." 

"I  beg  your  pardon,  William;  I  know  that  with 
200 


MRS.   FARRELL 

your  notions  to  loyalty  to  your  friend,  you  wouldn't 
allow  yourself  to  speculate  about  the  nature  of  the 
woman  he  hoped  to  make  his  wife,  and  I  honor  you 
for  your  delicacy,  though  she's  only  another  woman 
to  me.  Easton  would  deal  the  same  with  himself, 
if  the  case  were  yours." 

Gilbert  listened  with  a  stolid  but  rather  a  haggard 
air,  and  his  sister-in-law  continued: 

"I  suppose  she  must  make  it  difficult  to  treat 
her  at  times  with  the  lofty  respect  that  you'd  like 
to  use,  and  that  you  have  to  keep  him  in  mind 
pretty  constantly.  And  yet,  I  don't  know,  after 
all.  It  seems  to  me  that  if  you  interpret  her  be 
havior  generously" — Gilbert  winced  a  little  at  the 
words,  used  almost  as  Easton  had  once  used  them 
— "and  make  due  allowance  for  his  histrionic 
temperament,  it  can't  be  so  very  hard  for  an 
honorable  man." 

"The  clemency  of  your  sentiments  in  regard  to 
Mrs.  Farrell  is  a  continual  surprise  to  me,  Susan, 
when  I  remember  what  an  outfit  you  gave  her  the 
time  we  first  talked  of  her,"  said  Gilbert. 

"Oh,  you  can  easily  convict  me  of  inconsistency 
on  any  point,"  answered  his  sister-in-law.  "But 
why  shouldn't  I  see  a  change  for  the  better  in  her? 
Why  shouldn't  I  sincerely  believe  her  capable  of 
nobler  things  than  I  once  did  ? ' ' 

"You  have  all  the  reasons  in  the  world;  and  if 
you  had  none,  still,  optimism  is  amiable.  But 
really,  do  you  know  this  is  getting  very  tiresome? 
Am  I  to  spend  all  my  leisure  moments  with  you  in 
philosophizing  Mrs.  Farrell?  I'm  willing  to  take 

201 


MRS.  FARRELL 

any  version  of  her  that  you  give  me.  How  can  I 
doubt  her  devotion  to  Easton  when  I  see  her  getting 
ready  to  knit  him  a  smoking-cap?  I  know  she's 
sorry  for  having  made  that  misunderstanding  be 
tween  him  and  me,  for  she  said  she  was.  Who 
wouldn't  believe  a  handsome  young  woman  when 
she  says  she's  sorry?  Perhaps  another  handsome 
young  woman.  Not  I." 

1  'Now  you're  talking  in  a  very  silly,  cynical  way, 
William,  and  you'd  better  say  good  morning,  and 
come  again  when  you're  in  a  different  mood." 

"I'm  willing  enough  to  say  good  morning/'  re 
turned  Gilbert,  and  went. 

He  went  by  an  attraction  which  he  could  not 
resist  to  Easton's  room,  and  experienced  again 
that  heartquake  with  which  he  now  always  met  his 
friend's  eye,  and  which  he  was  always  struggling 
to  prevent  or  avert.  It  was  a  thing  which  his  nerves 
might  be  reasoned  out  of,  with  due  thought,  and  it 
did  not  come,  when  he  was  once  in  Easton's  presence 
and  confronted  him  from  time  to  time.  But  in  the 
morning,  when  their  eyes  first  met,  or  after  any  little 
absence,  the  shock  was  inevitable;  and  he  knew, 
though  he  would  not  own  it  to  himself,  that  he  had 
been  trying  somehow  to  shun  the  encounter.  The 
bitterest  rage  he  had  felt  against  his  friend  was  bliss 
to  this  fear  of  the  trust  he  saw  in  Easton's  face. 
He  could  best  endure  it  when  he  could  meet  him  in 
Mrs.  Farrell's  presence.  In  the  gay  talk  which  he 
held  with  them  together  he  could  persuade  himself 
that  the  harmless  pleasure  of  the  moment  was  all. 
He  found  a  like  respite  when  alone  with  her.  He 

202 


MRS.   FARRELL 

did  not  pretend  to  himself  that  he  tried  to  avoid 
her;  he  knew  that  he  sought  her  with  feverish 
eagerness;  now  and  then  in  the  pauses  of  her  voice 
a  haggard  consciousness  blotted  his  joy  in  her 
charm,  but  when  he  parted  from  her  he  was  sen 
sible  of  a  stupid  and  craven  apprehension,  as  if  the 
fascination  of  her  presence  were  also  a  safeguard 
beyond  which  he  could  not  hope  for  mercy  from 
himself.  At  such  times  it  was  torture  to  meet 
Rachel  Woodward,  and  the  shy  friendship  which 
had  sprung  up  between  them  died  of  this  pain.  His 
haunting  inward  blame  seemed  to  look  at  him  again 
from  her  clear  eyes ;  he  accused  himself  in  the  tones 
of  her  voice;  she  confronted  him  like  an  outer  con 
science,  even  when  her  regard  seemed  explicitly  to 
refuse  intelligence  of  what  was  in  his  heart. 

At  dinner,  that  day,  Mrs.  Farrell  was  very  bright- 
eyed  and  rather  subdued ;  she  looked  like  a  woman 
who  had  been  having  a  cry.  She  talked  amiably  with 
everybody,  as  was  now  her  wont,  and  when  she  found 
herself,  late  in  the  afternoon,  again  on  the  piazza 
with  Gilbert,  she  said,  " You're  sorry,  I  suppose." 

"Not  the  least,"  he  answered,  with  nervous 
abruptness.  "Why  should  I  be  sorry?  Because 
you  made  an  outrageous  speech  to  me?" 

"You  are  rather  a  vindictive  person,  aren't 
you?"  she  asked,  beginning  again. 

"No— I  don't  think  so,"  returned  Gilbert.  "Do 
you?" 

"You  cherished  a  grudge  against  me  a  good 
while,  and  if  you  hadn't  happened  to  overdo  it 
you'd  be  still  bearing  malice,  I  suppose." 

203 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"And  because  you  overdid  it  this  morning  you're 
able  to  pardon  me  now.  I  see  the  process  of  your 
reasoning.  Well,  hereafter  I  shall  not  offend  you 
by  smiling;  I'm  going  to  frown  at  everything 
you  do." 

"No,  don't  do  that!  I  want  you  to  be  very  kind 
to  me." 

"Yes?  How  is  a  gentleman  to  be  kind  to  a 
lady?" 

"Everything  depends  upon  character  and  cir 
cumstance.  If  she  isn't  the  wisest  of  her  sex — so 
few  of  us  are — and  has  been  used  to  doing  and 
saying  quite  what  she  pleased,  without  regard  to 
consequences,  and  she  finds  herself  in  a  position 
where  circumspection  is  her  duty,  he  ought  to  look 
about  for  her  and  guard  her." 

"From  what?" 

"Oh — hawks,  and  lynxes,  and — cats.  They're 
everywhere." 

Mrs.  Farrell  sat  down  on  the  benching  and  drew 
from  her  pocket  the  balls  of  worsted  which  she  had 
loosely  rolled  in  a  handkerchief,  together  with  some 
knitting  already  begun,  and  went  on  with  the  work, 
while  Gilbert  stood  before  her,  looking  down  at  her. 

"You  oughtn't  to  have  helped  me  with  these  this 
morning,"  she  said,  pushing  the  little  balls  about 
and  sorting  them  for  the  right  colors. 

"You  asked  me  to  do  it!" 

"But  you  ought  to  have  refused.  It  was  because 
I  thought  you  were  trying  to  embarrass  me,  and 
take  advantage  of  my  foolishness,  that  I  got  angry 
and  was  rude  to  you." 

204 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Gilbert  said  nothing,  and  after  a  little  more  com 
parison  of  the  worsteds  Mrs.  Farrell  made  her  de 
cision,  and  took  her  knitting  in  her  hand. 

"Help  me,  don't  hinder  me!"  she  went  on  in  a 
low  voice.  "Don't  be  amused  at  me;  let  me  alone; 
keep  away  from  me;  don't  make  me  talked  about ! " 

"Shall  I  go  now?"  asked  Gilbert,  huskily. 

Mrs.  Farrell  looked  up  at  him  in  astonishment 
that  dispersed  all  other  emotions.  "Oh,  good 
gracious!"  she  cried,  "they're  all  alike,  after  all! 
No,  you  poor — man,  you !  You  must  stay,  now,  till 
some  one  comes  up;  and  don't  run  off  the  instant 
they  do  come!  And  you  must  keep  on  talking, 
now.  Come,  let  us  converse  of  various  matters — 

"  '  Whether  the  sea  is  boiling  hot, 
And  whether  pigs  have  wings.* 

There,  thank  Heaven !  there  comes  Mrs.  Stevenson. 
Pay  some  attention  to  her.  Ask  her  about  her  art, 
as  she  calls  it,  and  try  to  seem  interested.  Mrs. 
Stevenson,  I'm  in  despair  over  these  worsteds.  I 
can  make  nothing  of  them.  Did  you  see  any  at  the 
Bazar,  the  other  day,  when  you  were  at  Quopsaug? 
There  ought  to  be  crewels  in  that  immense  assort 
ment.  Where  is  that  lavender?  Where,  oh,  tell  me 
where,  is  that  little  lavender  gone?  Perhaps  it's  in 
my  pocket!  Perhaps  it's  rolled  under  the  bench. 
No!  Then  I've  left  it  in  my  room,and  I'll  have  to 
go  after  it.  Excuse!"  She  caught  her  worsteds 
against  her  dress,  and,  turning  a  sidelong  glance 
upon  him  as  she  whirled  past,  made  "Talk!"  with 
mute  lips,  and  left  him. 

205 


MRS.  FARRELL 

When  she  came  back,  neither  he  nor  Mrs.  Steven 
son  was  there.  They  had  apparently  dispersed  each 
other.  She  sat  down  awhile  and  knitted  content 
edly,  and  then  went  with  her  work  to  visit  Mrs. 
Gilbert,  who  had  not  been  at  dinner. 

"I'm  very  glad  to  see  you,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert, 
who  had  a  flask  of  cologne  in  her  hand,  and  moist 
ened  her  forehead  with  it  from  time  to  time  as  she 
talked. 

"Headache?"  suggested  Mrs.  Farrell. 

"Yes,  only  a  minor  headache — nothing  heroic 
at  all.  It's  merely  something  to  occupy  the  mind. 
Do  you  happen  to  know  where  my  brother  is?" 

"I  left  him  with  Mrs.  Stevenson  on  the  piazza, 
a  few  moments  ago — talking  art,  I  suppose."  Mrs. 
Farrell  adventured  this.  "They're  not  there,  now; 
perhaps  he's  gone  to  look  at  her  works." 

"That's  the  smoking-cap,  is  it?"  asked  Mrs. 
Gilbert. 

Mrs.  Farrell  held  up  at  arm's  length  the  small 
circle  of  the  crown  which  she  had  so  far  knitted,  and, 
gazing  at  it  in  deep  preoccupation,  answered,  "Yes. 
These  are  the  colors,"  she  added.  She  leaned 
toward  the  other,  and  held  them  forward  in  both 
hands.  "I  think  it's  pretty  well  for  West  Pekin." 

"I've  no  doubt  it  will  be  charming,"  said  Mrs. 
Gilbert.  "I  don't  approve  of  smoking,  of  course, 
but  I  hope  he'll  soon  be  able  to  use  his  smoking-cap. 
I  was  just  thinking  about  you,  Mrs.  Farrell.  I 
want  Mr.  Easton  to  get  well  as  soon  as  possible,  so 
that  you  can  begin  to  have  a  good,  long,  common 
place  courtship.  If  you  were  a  daughter  of  mine — " 

206 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"I  should  be  a  pretty  old  daughter  for  you,  Mrs. 
Gilbert,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  flatteringly. 

"Oh,  I  fancy  not  so  very.    How  old  are  you?" 

"I'm  twenty-four." 

"And  I'm  forty-five,  and  look  fifty.  You're  still 
in  your  first  youth,  and  I'm  in  my  first  old  age.  I 
could  easily  be  your  mother." 

"I  wish  you  were!  I  should  be  the  better  for 
being  your  daughter,  Mrs.  Gilbert." 

"I  don't  know.  I  shouldn't  like  to  promise  you 
that.  But  sometimes  I  think  I  could  have  been  a 
good  mother,  or  at  least  that  children  would  have 
made  a  good  mother  of  me,  for  I  believe  that  half 
the  goodness  that  women  get  credit  for  is  forced 
upon  them  by  those  little  helpless  troubles.  Men 
could  be  just  as  good  if  they  had  the  care  and 
burden  of  children — men  are  so  very  near  being  very- 
good  as  it  is." 

"I  know  it,"  sighed  Mrs.  Farrell.  "I  never  knew 
my  own  mother,"  she  added;  "if  I  had,  I  might 
have  been  a  better  woman.  But  are  we  to  blame, 
I  wonder,  that  we  are  not  so  good  as  we  might  have 
been — you  if  you'd  had  children,  and  I  if  I  had  had 
a  mother?" 

"Oh,  I  don't  know.  I  dare  say  we  shall  never  be 
judged  so  harshly  anywhere  else  as  we  are  in  this 
world." 

"That's  true!"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  bitterly. 

"Not  that  we  don't  stand  in  need  of  judgment," 
continued  the  other,  "as  much  as  we  do  of  mercy. 
It's  wholesome,  and  I've  never  been  unjustly 
blamed  yet  that  I  didn't  feel  I  deserved  it  all,  and 

207 


MRS.   FARRELL 

more.    Oh,  Mrs.  Farrell,  if  I  were  really  to  speak 
to  you  as  my  daughter — " 

"Don't  call  me  Mrs.  Farrell!  Call  me  by  my 
own  name,"  cried  the  younger  woman,  impul 
sively.  "Call  me— Rosabel." 

"Is  that  your  name?  I  took  it  for  granted  you 
were  Isabel.  It's  a  very  pretty  name,  very  sweet 
and  quaint;  but  I  won't  call  you  by  it;  it  would 
make  you  more  of  a  stranger  to  me  than  Mrs. 
Farrell  does." 

"Well,  no  matter.  You  shall  call  me  what  you 
like.  Come ;  you  said  if  you  were  to  speak  to  me  as 
your  daughter — " 

"Oh,  I'm  not  certain  whether  I  can  go  on,  after 
all.  Perhaps  what  I  was  going  to  say  would  de 
generate  into  a  kind  of  lecture  on  love  and  mar 
riage  in  the  abstract.  If  I  had  a  daughter  whose 
love  affair  had  been  so  romantic  as  yours,  I  believe 
I  should  tell  her  to  make  all  the  surer  of  her  heart 
on  account  of  the  romance.  I'm  afraid  that  in 
matters  of  love,  romance  is  a  dangerous  element. 
Love  ought  to  be  perfectly  ordinary,  regular,  and 
every-day  like." 

"Those  are  very  heretical  ideas!"  said  Mrs. 
Farrell,  shaking  her  head. 

"Yes,  yes,  I  dare  say,"  answered  Mrs.  Gilbert; 
"but,  as  I  said  before,  I  hope  for  both  your  sakes 
that  you  and  Mr.  Easton  will  have  a  good  stupid 
wooing — at  least  a  year  of  it — when  he  gets 
well." 

"I  shall  not  object  to  that,  I'm  sure,"  said  Mrs. 
Farrell,  demurely. 

208 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"  No,  I  should  hope  you  were  too  much  of  a 
woman.  That's  a  woman's  reign,  the  time  of  court 
ship.  Her  lover  is  never  truly  subject  to  her  again. 
Make  it  as  long  as  you  can — long  enough  to  get  the 
romance  out  of  your  heads.  And  I  wish  you  a 
sound  quarrel  or  two." 

1 '  Oh !    Now  you  are  joking. ' ' 

' '  Yes,  I  am.  I  hope  you  may  never  say  an  unkind 
word  to  each  other.  Have  you  a  temper?" 

1  'Not  much,  I  believe." 

"Has  he?" 

"I've  been  a  little  afraid  of  him  once  or  twice." 

"Already?  Well,  I  think  it's  a  pity  you  haven't 
a  temper,  too.  Don't  be  one  of  the  coldly  self- 
possessed  kind  when  he  is  angry;  it's  far  better  to 
be  frightened." 

"I  will  try  always  to  be  frightened.  But  I'm  not 
sure  that  it  was  any  violence  of  his  that  scared  me, 
so  much  as  his — " 

"What?" 

"Well,  his  goodness — or  somebody  else's  badness. 
Mine,  for  example." 

"Ah  yes!  He  is  a  good  man.  It's  a  merit  in  a 
husband,  goodness  is;  though  I  doubt  very  much 
if  young  people  often  think  of  that;  they're  so 
blinded  by  each  other's  idolatry  that  they  have  no 
sense  of  good  or  bad ;  they  adore  one  quite  as  much 
as  the  other.  And  you  must  consider  yourself  a 
young  person.  You  must  have  been  very  young 
when  you  were  married,  Mrs.  Farrell." 

"Yes,  I  was  very  young  indeed.  It  seems  a 
great  while  ago.  And  afterward  my  life  was  very 
14  209 


MRS.   FARRELL 

unhappy — after  his  death — they  made  it  so.  Mrs. 
Gilbert,"  she  cried,  "I  know  you  don't  like  a  great 
many  things  in  me;  but  perhaps  you  would  like 
more  if  you  knew  more.'* 

"Yes,  but  don't  tell  them.  One  must  have  some 
thing  to  disapprove  of  in  others,  or  how  can  one 
respect  oneself?'* 

"I  don't  say  that  the  fault  was  all  theirs;  I  don't 
pretend  that  I  was  a  very  meek  or  manageable 
sister,  but  only  that  I  could  have  been  better  with 
better  people.  They  were  vulgar  to  the  tips  of  their 
fingers.  And  that  drove  me  from  them  at  last." 

They  sat  some  moments  without  saying  any 
thing,  Mrs.  Gilbert  keeping  her  eyes  intent  upon 
Mrs.  Farrell's  face,  whose  fallen  eyes  in  turn  were 
fixed  upon  her  work.  Then  the  former  said  with  a 
little  sigh,  "So  you  think  I  don't  like  some  things 
about  you!  My  dear,  I  like  altogether  too  many. 
Yes,"  she  continued,  absently,  studying  the  beauti 
ful  face,  "I  suppose  I  should,  too." 

"Should  what?"  asked  Mrs.  Farrell. 

"Make  a  fool  of  myself,  if  I  were  a  man.  I  never 
could  resist  such  a  face  as  yours ;  I  only  wonder  they 
don't  have  more  power.  But  recollect,  my  dear, 
that  somehow,  sometime,  you'll  be  held  respon 
sible  for  your  power,  if  you  abuse  it,  even  though 
we  poor  mortals  seem  to  ask  nothing  better  than 
to  be  made  fools  of  by  you." 

"Was  that  what  you  were  going  to  say?"  asked 
Mrs.  Farrell,  lifting  her  eyes  from  her  work  and 
looking  keenly  at  Mrs.  Gilbert. 

"No,  it  wasn't.  But  I'm  so  far  off  the  track, 
210 


MRS.   FARRELL 

now,  I  won't  say  it.    After  all,  it  might  seem  like  a 
glittering  generality  about — " 

The  women  relaxed  their  wary  regard;  the  elder 
did  not  offer  to  go  on,  and  the  younger  did  not 
urge  her.  Mrs.  Farrell  knitted  half  a  round  on  the 
smoking-cap,  as  if  to  gain  a  new  starting  point,  and 
then  dropped  her  work  in  her  lap  and  laid  her 
hands,  one  on  top  of  the  other,  over  it.  ''Did  you 
ever  try  inhaling  the  fumes  of  coffee  for  your  head 
aches?"  she  asked. 

"Oh,  my  dear,  I  gave  that  up  away  back  in  the 
Dark  Ages,"  returned  Mrs.  Gilbert,  resorting  to  the 
cologne. 

"I  suppose  the  cologne  does  you  no  good?" 

"Not  the  least  in  the  world.  But  one  must  do 
something." 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Farrell,  drawing  the  word  in 
with  a  long  breath,  "one  must  do  something."  She 
took  up  her  work  again  and  knitted  awhile  before 
she  added,  ' 1 1  wonder  if  a  man  would  go  on  forever 
doing  something  that  he  knew  did  him  no  good,  as 
a  woman  does?" 

"No,  I  suppose  not.  Men  are  very  queer,"  said 
Mrs.  Gilbert,  gravely.  "They're  quite  inert.  But 
that  gives  them  some  of  their  advantages." 

"They  have  pretty  nearly  all  the  advantages, 
haven't  they  ? ' '  asked  Mrs.  Farrell,  quickly.  ' '  Even 
when  some  woman  makes  fools  of  them!  At  least 
when  that  happens  they  have  all  the  other  women  on 
their  side."  As  she  knitted  rapidly  on  she  had  now 
and  then  a  little  tremulous  motion  of  the  head  that 
shook  the  gold  hoops  in  her  ears  against  her  neck, 

211 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"Well,  then  they  have  a  right  to  our  pity." 

"Oh,  do  you  think  so?  It  seems  to  me  that  she 
has  a  right  to  more."  She  looked  down  on  either 
side  of  her  at  the  floor.  "I  thought  I  brought  both 
balls  of  that  ashes  of  roses  with  me."  Mrs.  Gilbert 
looked  about  the  carpet  in  her  vicinity.  "Don't 
trouble  yourself.  It's  no  matter.  I  think  I  won't 
use  it  here,  after  all.  I'll  use  this  brown.  A  woman 
never  makes  a  fool  of  a  man  unless  she  respects  him 
very  much.  Of  course  there  must  be  something 
fascinating  about  him,  or  she  wouldn't  care  to  have 
him  care  for  her,  at  all;  it  would  be  disgusting." 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert. 

"And  then,"  continued  Mrs.  Farrell,  keeping  her 
eyes  on  her  work  and  knitting  faster  and  faster, 
"if  she  has  any  heart  at  all,  it  must  be  half  broken 
to  think  of  what  she's  done.  The  falsest  coquette 
that  ever  was  would  feel  like  bowing  down  to  true 
love  in  a  man;  and  what  is  she  to  do  if  ever  the 
worst  comes  to  the  worst  and  she  finds  she's  afraid 
she  doesn't  love  him?  She  must  know  that  his  good 
faith  is  ten  million  times  stronger  than  her  looks, 
and  that  it  has  a  claim  which  she  must  try  to 
answer  somehow.  Shall  she  marry  him  out  of  pity, 
and  put  him  to  the  shame  of  finding  it  out  some 
day?  That  would  be  the  worst  kind  of  treachery. 
No,  no;  she  couldn't  do  that !  And  can  she  tell  him 
how  wicked  she  has  been,  and  ask  him  never  to  see 
her  face  or  breathe  her  name  or  hear  it  spoken 
again  ?  That  would  be  easy,  if  it  were  only  for  her ! 
But  if  she  did  this,  if  she  could  have  the  courage  to 
kill  his  faith  in  her  with  such  a  blow  as  that,  and  to 

212 


MRS.   FARRELL 

blacken  his  life  with  shame  for  having  loved  her, 
what  better  would  she  be  than  a  murderess?" 

She  grew  pale  as  she  spoke,  but  no  tremor  now 
shook  the  hoops  in  her  ears;  she  only  wrought  the 
more  swiftly  and  kept  her  eyes  upon  the  flying 
needle,  while  a  kind  of  awe  began  to  express  itself 
in  the  gaze  that  Mrs.  Gilbert  bent  upon  her. 

"What  should  you  think  then  of  the  power  of  a 
pretty  face?"  asked  Mrs.  Farrell,  flashing  a  curious 
look  of  self -scorn  upon  her.  "What  could  the 
pretty  face  do  for  her,  or  for  him?  Could  it  help 
her  to  forgive  herself,  or  help  him  to  forget  her? 
And  which  would  have  the  greatest  claim  to  the 
pity  of  the  spectators? — supposing  there  were  spec 
tators  of  the  tragedy,  and  there  nearly  always  are. 
Come,  imagine  some  such  woman,  Mrs.  Gilbert, 
and  imagine  her  your  daughter — you  were  imagin 
ing  me  your  daughter,  just  now — and  tell  me  what 
you  would  say  to  her.  You  wouldn't  know  what  to 
say,  even  to  your  own  daughter?  Oh!  I  thought 
you  might  throw  some  light  upon  such  a  case. ' '  She 
had  lifted  her  eyes  with  fierce  challenge  to  Mrs. 
Gilbert's,  but  now  she  dropped  them  again  upon 
her  work.  "But  what  if  the  case  were  still  worse? 
Can  you  imagine  so  much  as  its  being  worse?" 

"Yes,  I  can  imagine  its  being  worse,"  said  Mrs. 
Gilbert,  whose  visage  seemed  to  age  suddenly  with 
a  premonition  that  a  thing  long  dreaded,  long  ex 
pected,  was  now  coming,  in  spite  of  all  attempted 
disbelief. 

"Oh  yes,  certainly!  You  were  wondering  just 
now  that  beauty  didn't  have  greater  power!  Sup- 

213 


MRS.  FARRELL 

pose  that  even  in  all  this  wretchedness,  this  miser 
able  daughter  of  yours  was  afraid —  Ah!  Mrs. 
Gilbert,"  she  cried,  starting  violently  to  her  feet, 
"you  were  trying  a  minute  ago — don't  you  think  I 
knew  your  drift  ? — to  peep  into  my  heart !  How  do 
you  like  to  have  it  flung  wide  open  to  you?"  She 
confronted  Mrs.  Gilbert,  who  had  risen  too,  with  a 
wild  reproach,  as  if  she  had  made  the  wrong  an 
other's  by  tearing  the  secret  of  it  from  her  own 
breast.  Mrs.  Gilbert  answered  her  nothing,  and  in 
another  instant  she  faltered,  "  Don't  blame  him, 
don't  be  harsh  with  him.  But,  oh,  in  the  name  of 
mercy,  send  him  away!" 


Chapter  XII 

IT  was  already  dark  when  Gilbert  knocked  at 
his  sister-in-law's  door.  She  was  sitting  in 
the  chair  from  which  she  had  risen  at  parting 
with  Mrs.  Farrell,  and  into  which  she  sank  again 
at  her  going.  Gilbert  sat  down  before  her,  but  did 
not  speak. 

"Have  you  made  up  your  mind  when  you  shall 
go,  William?"  she  asked,  gently. 

"I  haven't  made  up  my  mind  that  I  shall  go  at 
all,"  he  answered,  in  a  sullen  tone. 

"But  I  think  you  had  better,"  she  said  as  before. 

"I  am  always  glad,  Susan,  of  advice  that  costs  me 
nothing,"  he  returned,  with  an  affectation  of  his 
habitual  lightness. 

"I  have  been  thinking  about  you,  William,  and 
I  want  you  to  go  to  New  York  at  once.  Your 
friend  is  out  of  all  danger,  now,  and  it's  you  who  are 
in  danger." 

"You  know  I  never  was  good  at  conundrums, 
Mrs.  Gilbert.  May  I  ask  what  particular  peril  is 
threatening  me  at  present?" 

"A  peril  that  an  honest  man  runs  from — the 
danger  of  doing  a  great  wrong,  of  committing  a 
cowardly  breach  of  faith." 

"Upon  my  word,  Susan,  you  are  using  words — " 
215 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Oh,  don't  catch  at  my  words,  my  poor  boy. 
Have  you  nothing  to  reproach  yourself  with?  If 
you  haven't,  I  beg  your  pardon  with  all  my  heart, 
and  I  will  be  glad  to  take  back  my  words,  yes,  take 
them  back  upon  my  knees!" 

"What  is  all  this  coil  about?  What  are  you 
worrying  me  with  these  emotional  mysteries  for?" 
demanded  Gilbert,  angrily,  yet  with  a  note  of  un- 
genuine  bluster  in  his  voice.  "What  are  you  trying 
to  get  at?" 

"Your  heart,  William;  your  conscience,  your 
honor,  your  self-respect.  Do  you  think  I  am  blind? 
Do  you  think  I  have  not  seen  it  all?  If  you  will 
tell  me  you  don't  know  what  I  mean,  and  make  me 
believe  it,  I  will  never  call  myself  unhappy  again." 

"If  you  have  suffered  yourself  to  be  made  uncom 
fortable  by  any  affair  or  condition  of  mine,"  said 
Gilbert,  "I  advise  you  to  console  yourself  by  re 
flecting  that  it  doesn't  really  concern  you.  How 
long  is  it,"  he  demanded,  savagely,  "since  you  have 
felt  authorized  to  interfere  in  my  questions  of  honor 
and  conscience?" 

"Ever  since  a  motherless  boy  let  a  childless 
woman  love  him.  Oh,  think  that  I  do  love  you,  my 
dear,  and  speak  to  you  out  of  my  jealousy  for  your 
stainless  good  faith,  your  sacred  friendship,  your 
unsullied  life!  You  know  what  I  mean.  Think 
that  she  is  pledged  by  everything  that  is  good  in 
her  to  your  friend.  If  you  believe  she  does  not  love 
him,  let  her  break  with  him  how  and  when  she  will. 
But  don't  you  be  her  wicked  hope — wickeder  a 
thousand  times  than  she! — don't  be  the  temptation, 

216 


MRS.   FARRELL 

the  refuge  of  her  falseness.  Leave  her  to  her 
self!  You  could  only  add  your  treason  to  hers  by 
staying!" 

"  Wicked  hope,  temptation,  treason — this  is  all 
rather  theatrical  for  you,  Susan,"  said  Gilbert, 
with  an  attempt  to  smile.  He  frowned  instead. 
"And  what  do  I  owe  to  Easton  in  the  way  of 
loyalty?  Do  you  know  how  little  care  he  has  had 
for  me  ?  Do  you  know — ' ' 

"No,  no,  no!  I  don't  know,  I  won't  know!  If  he 
has  wronged  you  in  any  way,  you  are  only  the  more 
bound  to  be  faithful  to  him  in  such  a  case  as  this. 
But  I  will  never  believe  that  Easton  has  wronged 
you  willingly,  and  you  don't  believe  it,  either,  what 
ever  the  trouble  is  that  she  made  between  you — 
you  know  you  don't.  You  are  talking  away  your 
own  sense  of  guilt,  or  trying  to.  Well,  I  can't  blame 
you  for  that;  but  keep  these  things  to  silence  your 
conscience  with  when  you  are  alone;  you  will  need 
them  all.  How  long  have  you  watched  by  your 
friend's  pillow  with  the  hope  of  revenge  in  your 
heart?" 

Mrs.  Gilbert  rose  from  her  chair  and  walked  to 
one  of  the  windows,  and  then  came  and  paused  in 
front  of  Gilbert,  where  he  now  stood  leaning  against 
the  mantelpiece.  "Come,"  she  entreated,  "you 
will  go  away,  won't  you,  William?  I  know  you 
never  meant  him  wrong.  It  has  all  been  something 
that  has  stolen  upon  you,  but  you  will  go  now, 
won't  you?" 

"No,  I  will  not  go!" 

' '  You  will  remain  ? ' ' 

217 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Till  such  time  as  I  see  fit.  I  am  not  a  boy,  to 
be  sent  hither  and  thither." 

"What  good  will  you  remain  for?"  demanded 
the  woman,  sternly.  "Or  do  you  choose  to  remain 
for  evil  ?  Every  hour  that  you  remain  deepens  your 
responsibility.  Some  things  have  been  talked  of 
already.  How  long  will  it  be  before  the  whole  house 
sees  that  you  are  in  love  with  the  woman  promised 
to  your  friend?" 

"Do  you  suppose  I  care  what  this  houseful  of 
spying,  tattling  women  see  or  say?" 

"There  are  no  spies  and  no  tattlers;  but  if  they 
were,  a  man  who  hadn't  shut  his  senses  against  his 
own  conscience  would  care.  No  one  blames  you  as 
yet,  but  the  time  will  soon  be  when  you  will  make 
the  blame  all  your  own." 

"I  wouldn't  ask  her  to  share  it." 

"Oh,  very  fine!  you  think  your  brave  words 
will  make  a  brave  affair  of  a  cowardly,  sneaking 
treason!" 

"Susan!" 

"William!  These  people  who  are  beginning  to 
talk  you  over  do  not  know  what  I  know.  They  see 
that  you  are  beginning  to  be  fascinated  with  her, 
as  he  was.  They  don't  know  that  you  have  believed 
her  false  and  shallow  from  the  first,  and  that  if  you 
have  any  hopes  of  her  love  now,  they  are  in  your 
belief  that  after  all  that  has  happened  she  is  still 
too  false  and  shallow  to  be  true  to  him.  He  was 
taken  with  what  was  best  in  her,  with  all  that  he 
believed  was  good.  But  you  have  dared  to  love  her 
in  the  hope  that  she  had  no  principles  and  no  heart. 

218 


MRS.  FARRELL 

You  are  ready  to  lay  younhonor  at  her  feet,  to  give 
all  that  makes  life  worth  having  for  what  would 
make  your  whole  life  a  sorrow  and  a  shame.  If  you 
could  commit  this  crime  against  Easton  and  your 
self  and  her,  if  you  could  win  the  heart  you  think 
so  empty  and  so  fickle,  what  would  you  do  with  it? 
If  you  could  make  her  false  enough  to  love  you, 
how  could  you  ever  have  peace  again?  How  could 
you  ever  meet  each  other's  eyes  without  seeing  the 
memory  of  your  common  falsehood  in  them? 
Think —  Oh,  my  dear,  dear  boy,  forgive  me!  I 
know  that  it  isn't  your  fault;  I  take  it  all  back,  all 
that  I  have  said  against  you;  I  don't  blame  you 
for  loving  her — how  could  you  help  it?  She  is 
charming — yes,  she  charms  me,  too;  and  to  a  man 
she  must  make  all  other  women  seem  so  blank  and 
poor  and  plain!  But  now  you  mustn't  love  her: 
she  cannot  be  yours  without  a  wrong  that  when 
you're  away  from  her  you  must  shudder  at.  And — 
and — you  will  go,  won't  you,  William?" 

Gilbert's  arm  dropped  from  the  mantel  where  it 
lay,  to  his  side.  "I  will  go,"  he  said,  sullenly. 
"But  I  acknowledge  nothing  of  all  that  you  have 
chosen  to  attribute  to  me,  motive  or  fact.  And 
you  must  be  aware  that  you  have  said  things  to 
me  that  are  not  to  be  forgiven." 

He  turned  to  go  out  of  the  room,  without  looking 
at  her,  but  she  cried  after  him:  " Never  mind  for 
giving  me,  my  dear.  Only  go  now,  in  time  to  for 
give  yourself,  and  I  will  gladly  let  you  hate  me  all 
your  life.  Good-by,  good-by;  God  bless  you  and 
keep  you!" 

219 


MRS.  FARRELL 

He  did  not  answer,  nor  turn  about,  but  closed  the 
door  behind  him  and  left  her  standing  with  her 
hands  clenched,  in  the  gesture  of  her  final  appeal. 
She  sank  into  her  chair,  spent  by  the  victory  she 
had  won. 

Gilbert  went  to  the  room  which  he  had  been  occu 
pying  since  his  constant  attendance  upon  Easton 
had  ceased  to  be  necessary,  and  began  to  gather 
together  the  things  scattered  about  the  room.  It 
was  a  great  and  bewildering  labor,  but  he  had  suc 
ceeded  in  heaping  many  of  them  into  his  valise  when 
Rachel  Woodward  appeared  with  his  lighted  lamp. 
Then  he  knew  that  he  had  been  working  in  the 
dark.  "Oh,  thank  you,  thank  you,"  he  said,  in  a 
strange  voice  of  unconscious,  formal  politeness. 
"I — I  was  just  going  away,  and  it's  rather  difficult 
getting  these  things  together  without  a  light." 

"You  are  going  away?"  she  asked. 

"Yes;  I  had  a  letter  this  morning  recalling  me 
to  New  York,  but  I  hadn't  made  up  my  mind  to  go 
until  just  now.  I'm  going  to  try  to  catch  the  ex 
press;  I'll  get  a  man  to  drive  me  over  from  the 
hotel,  and  I'll  send  him  back  from  there  for  this 
bag." 

"And  you  are  going  at  once?"  she  said,  almost 
gladly. 

"Yes,"  he  said;  and  he  gave  her  an  address,  to 
which  he  asked  her  to  have  her  mother  send  the 
account  of  her  charges  against  him.  With  a  little 
hesitation  he  offered  her  his  hand,  and  she  took  it 
with  something  like  a  show  of  penitence.  "Good- 
by,"  said  he,  "I  hope  if  you  ever  have  occasion  to 

220 


MRS.   FARRELL 

think  of  me,  you'll  be  lenient  to  my  memory;  and 
if  it  isn't  the  thing  for  me  to  say  that  I  feel  as  if  I 
somehow  owed  you  a  debt  of  gratitude  for  being 
what  you  are,  why,  I  hope  you'll  excuse  it  to  the 
confusion  of  the  parting  moment." 

Rachel's  face  flushed  a  little,  but  she  did  not  try 
to  respond  to  the  odd  compliment,  and  Gilbert  said 
he  must  go  and  take  leave  of  East  on.  He  went 
abruptly  to  his  friend's  room,  but  faltered  a  mo 
ment  before  he  softly  turned  the  door-knob.  It 
was  dark  within,  and  the  long  and  even  breathing 
from  the  bed  where  Easton  lay  revealed  that  he  was 
asleep.  Gilbert  stood  a  moment  beside  him,  and 
then  leaned  over  and  peered  through  the  darkness 
with  his  face  close  to  the  sleeper's.  Neither  stirred. 
Gilbert  waited  another  moment,  and  with  a  heavy 
sigh  crept  from  the  room.  He  went  to  his  sister's 
door,  at  which  he  knocked,  but  impatiently  opened 
it  without  waiting  to  be  bidden  enter.  Mrs.  Gilbert 
looked  at  him  without  surprise. 

"I  came  back  on  a  small  matter  of  business, 
Susan.  I  neglected  to  say,  a  moment  ago,  that  I 
think  myself  an  infamous  wretch,  totally  unworthy 
of  your  pains  and  affection.  You  are  right  in  every 
thing.  I  thought  I'd  mention  it  in  justice  to  you; 
we  all  like  to  have  our  little  impressions  confirmed. 
Good-by." 

"Oh,  my  dear,  good  boy!  I  knew  you  wouldn't 
leave  me  so;  I  knew  you  would  come  back."  She 
took  his  hand  between  her  own,  and  he  bent  over 
and  kissed  the  pale  fingers  that  clasped  his  with 
their  weak,  nervous  stress.  "You're  so  good,  my 

221 


MRS.  FARRELL 

dear,  that  I've  half  a  mind  not  to  let  you  go;  but 
I  think  you  had  better  go.  Don't  you?" 

"Yes;  I  don't  wish  to  stay.  Very  likely  I  should 
be  able  to  behave  myself;  but  it  would  be  an  ex 
periment,  and  I  haven't  time  for  it.  On  the 
whole,"  he  said,  with  a  smile,  "I'd  as  lief  be  innocent 
as  virtuous." 

"Oh,  yes  indeed,"  answered  Mrs.  Gilbert,  "it's 
preferable  in  some  cases,  decidedly.  You're  not  so 
young  as  you  were  when  I  used  to  kiss  you,  Wil 
liam,"  she  added,  "but  neither  am  I,  and  I'm  really 
going  to  give  you  a  kiss  now  for  your  exemplary 
obedience,  and  for  good-by." 

"You  overwhelm  me,  Susan.  None  of  the  women 
at  Woodward  farm  seem  able  to  resist  my  fascina 
tions.  I  think  perhaps  I  had  better  go  away  on 
your  account." 

He  stooped  down  and  took  the  kiss  she  had  volun 
teered,  and  then  with  another  clasp  of  the  hand  he 
went. 

The  moon  had  risen,  and  was  striking  keenly 
through  the  thin  foliage  of  the  avenue  of  white 
birches  which  the  highway  became  in  its  approach 
to  the  farmhouse,  and  in  the  leaf-broken  light  he 
saw  drifting  before  him  a  figure  which  he  knew. 
He  stopped,  and  trembled  from  head  to  foot. 
Then,  whatever  may  have  seemed  the  better  part 
for  him  to  choose,  he  plunged  forward  again,  and 
overtook  her. 

"You  are  going  away,"  she  said,  half  turning 
her  face  upon  him.  "I  came  here  so  that  you 
could  not  go  without  seeing  me.  I  could  not  bear 

222 


MRS.  FARRELL 

to  have  you  go  away  thinking  I  was  such  a  heart 
less  woman  as  you  do,  with  no  care  or  regret  for 
all  the  trouble  I've  made  you." 

"I  wasn't  thinking  of  that,"  said  Gilbert;  "I 
wasn't  thinking  so  much  of  you  as  of  a  man — excuse 
the  egotism — who  has  a  great  deal  more  to  answer 
for." 

"Oh  no,  no!" 

"Sometime,  when  you  tell  Easton  about  it  all, 
as  you  must,  I  want  you  to  excuse  me  to  him;  no 
one  else  can.  Tell  him — tell  him  that  all  I  had  to 
urge  in  my  own  behalf  was  that  I  loved  you." 

"No,  no,  no!  You  mustn't  speak  to  me  in  that 
way!  It's  too  dreadful." 

"Oh  yes,  it's  dreadful.  But  you  can  excuse  it  if 
he  couldn't.  How  could  you  excuse  me  if  I  didn't 
love  you  ?  Why  else  should  we  be  parting  ?  I  must 
have  loved  you  from  the  first — before  I  knew. 
What  else  could  have  made  me  so  bitter  with  poor 
Easton  about  what  he  told  you?  I  knew  he  never 
meant  me  any  harm;  I  knew  he  couldn't;  he  was 
a  man  to  have  died  for  me.  I  was  mad  with  jeal 
ousy.  Did  you  mean  it?  You  managed  it  well! 
But  I  loved  you —  What  a  fool  I  am !  Don't  come 
any  farther;  in  Heaven's  name  go  back!  No,"  he 
said,  perceiving  that  she  faltered  in  her  steps,  as  if 
she  were  about  to  sink,  "don't  stop — come  on." 
He  had  caught  her  hand,  and  now  he  drew  it 
through  his  arm,  and  hurried  forward.  ' '  Yes,  come ! 
I  have  something  to  ask  you.  I  want  you  to  tell 
me  that  since  you  have  felt  yourself  bound  to  him, 
you  have  never — I  want  you  to  tell  me  that  I  was 

223 


MRS.  FARRELL 

altogether  in  a  delusion  about  you,  and  that  you 
have  done  nothing  to  make  me  recreant  to  him." 

"Oh,  oh,  oh!"  she  moaned.  "How  pitiless  you 
are!  How  hard,  how  hard  you  make  it  for  me!" 
She  released  her  hand  and  pressed  it  against  his  arm 
in  the  eagerness  of  her  entreaty.  "Leave  me — do 
leave  me — the  poor  hope  that  I  have  seemed  worse 
than  I  was!" 

He  threw  up  his  arm  across  his  forehead  and 
started  a  few  paces  onward. 

She  hastened  after  him.  "And  do  believe,"  she 
implored  him,  ' '  that  I  only  wanted  to  meet  you  to 
night  to  say — to — to — somehow  to  make  it  easier 
for  you  to  go.  Indeed,  indeed —  Don't  leave  me 
to  despair!" 

He  halted,  and  confronted  her.  "Was  that  what 
you  came  for?  I  thought  it  might  have  been  to  see 
if  you  couldn't  make  me  say  what  I  have  just  said; 
I  fancied  you  might  have  wished  to  send  me  away 
beggared  in  everything  that  makes  a  man  able  to 
face  the  past  and  the  future,  and  to  meet  the  eyes 
of  honest  men.  I  deserved  it.  But  I  was  mis 
taken,  was  I?"  he  asked,  with  a  bitter  derision. 
"Well,  good-by!" 

"No,  no!  You  shall  never  go,  believing  such  a 
thing  as  that !  If  I  hated  you — hated  you  to  death 
— how  could  I  wish  to  do  that  to  you?  Ah,  you 
don't  believe  it.  You — " 

But  he  turned  from  her,  and  hurried  swiftly 
down  the  lane  without  another  look  or  word. 


Chapter  XIII 

THE  summer  was  past,  but  the  pageant  of 
autumn  was  yet  undimmed.  In  the  wet 
meadows  of  the  lowlands,  even  in  the  last 
days  of  August,  before  the  goldenrod  was  in  its 
glory,  the  young  maples  lit  their  torches ;  and  what 
might  have  seemed  their  dropping  fires  crept  from 
sumac  to  sumac,  by  the  vines  in  the  grass  and  over 
the  walls,  till  all  the  trees,  kindling  day  by  day, 
stood  at  last  a  flame  of  red  and  gold  against  the  sky. 
The  jay  scolded  among  the  luminous  boughs; 
across  the  pale  heaven  the  far- voiced  crows  swam  in 
the  mellow  sunshine.  The  pastures  took  on  again 
the  green  of  May;  the  patches  of  corn  near  the 
farmhouses  rustled  dry  in  the  soft  wind;  between 
the  ranks  of  the  stalks  lolled  the  rounded  pumpkins. 
Many  of  the  summer  boarders  at  Woodward  farm 
had  already  gone  home.  The  two  young  girls  had 
gone  with  each  a  box  full  of  fern  roots  and  an  in 
ordinate  pasteboard  case  full  of  pressed  ferns. 
Mrs.  Stevenson  had  stayed  later  than  she  had 
meant,  in  order  to  complete  a  study  of  cat-tails 
with  autumn  foliage.  It  was  the  best  thing  that  she 
had  done,  and  really  better  than  anybody  had  ever 
expected  her  to  do.  It  sold  afterward  for  enough 
money  to  confirm  her  in  her  belief  that  wifehood 
15  225 


MRS.  FARRELL 

was  no  more  the  whole  of  womanhood  than  hus- 
bandhood  was  of  manhood,  and  that  to  expect  her 
to  keep  house  would  be  the  same  as  asking  every 
man,  no  matter  what  his  business  might  be,  to  make 
his  own  clothes  and  mend  his  own  shoes. 

The  husbands  of  three  of  the  married  ladies  came 
one  final  Saturday  night,  and  departed  with  them 
by  a  much  later  train  than  they  had  ever  taken 
before,  on  the  Monday  morning  following.  These 
ladies  were  going  home  to  take  up  their  domestic 
burdens  again  for  the  sake  of  the  men  who  had  toiled 
all  summer  long  in  the  city  for  them.  It  was  a  sac 
rifice,  but,  thanks  to  the  wonderful  air  of  West 
Pekin,  and  to  Mrs.  Woodward's  excellent  country 
fare,  they  were  equal  to  it;  at  least  they  did  not 
complain,  or  said  they  did  not,  which  is  the  same 
thing.  The  driver  from  the  station  came  to  fetch 
them  away  with  his  yellow  Concord  stage,  and  the 
ladies  got  upon  the  outside  seats  with  him,  and 
waved  their  handkerchiefs  to  those  left  behind. 
The  husbands  tried  to  shout  back  something  epi 
grammatic  as  they  drove  off,  but  these  things  are 
usually  lost  in  the  rattle  of  the  wheels,  and,  even 
when  heard,  often  prove  merely  an  earnest  of  good 
will  in  the  humorous  direction,  and  are  apt  to  fall 
flat  upon  the  kindliest  ear. 

Mrs.  Gilbert  was  among  the  latest  who  remained. 
Under  the  circumstances  she  might  not  have  chosen 
to  remain,  and  perhaps  her  prolonged  stay  was  an 
offering  to  appearances,  the  fetish  before  which 
women  will  put  themselves  to  any  torment.  Her 
husband  was  not  coming  for  her,  and  she  sat  alone 

226 


MRS.  FARRELL 

amid  her  preparations  for  departure  when  Mrs. 
Farrell,  in  passing  her  open  door,  lingered  half 
wistfully  and  looked  in  upon  her.  Since  that  day 
which  was  doubtless  always  in  both  their  minds 
whenever  they  met,  they  had  neither  shunned  nor 
sought  each  other,  but  there  had  been  no  intimacy 
between  them. 

" Won't  you  come  in,  Mrs.  Farrell?"  asked  the 
elder  lady,  with  a  glance  at  the  jaded  beauty  of  the 
other. 

"You  are  really  on  the  wing  at  last,"  said  Mrs. 
Farrell,  evasively  accepting  the  invitation.  She 
came  in,  looking  sad  and  distraught,  and  sat  down 
with  an  impermanent  air. 

"Yes,  I  suppose  one  may  call  it  wing,  for  want 
of  a  better  word/'  said  Mrs.  Gilbert,  who  indeed 
did  not  look  much  like  flying.  Presently  she  added, 
in  the  silence  that  ensued,  "You  are  not  looking 
very  well,  Mrs.  Farrell." 

"No?"  said  Mrs.  Farrell.  "Why  should  I  look 
well?  But  I  don't  know  that  I  don't  feel  as  well  as 
usual  in  the  way  I  suppose  you  mean." 

"I'm  sorry  you  don't  feel  well  in  every  way,"  said 
Mrs.  Gilbert,  responding  to  so  much  of  an  advance 
as  might  be  made  to  her  in  Mrs.  Farrell's  dispirited 
v/ords;  and  after  another  little  silence,  she  said, 
"Mr.  Easton  seems  to  have  gained  a  great  deal  in 
the  last  week." 

"Yes,  he  is  very  much  better;  he  is  going  away 
soon;  he  will  not  be  here  many  days  longer." 

"Mrs.  Farrell,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert,  "I  wish  you 
would  let  me  say  something  to  you." 

227 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Oh,  say  anything  you  like.  Why  shouldn't 
you?"  returned  Mrs.  Farrell,  not  resentfully,  but 
in  the  same  dispirited  tone. 

"I  know  you  don't  trust  me,"  began  Mrs. 
Gilbert." 

1  'There  isn't  much  trust  lost  between  us,  is 
there?"  asked  Mrs.  Farrell  as  before. 

"But  I  hope  you  will  believe,"  continued  Mrs. 
Gilbert,  "that  when  we  last  spoke  here  together  I 
wasn't  trying  to  interfere  with  what  you  might 
consider  entirely  your  own  affair  from  any  mean 
or  idle  motive.  If  I  was  trying  to  pry  into  your 
heart,  as  you  said  then,  it  was  because  it  seemed  to 
me  that  it  was  partly  my  affair,  too." 

"I  didn't  mean  to  resent  anything  you  did  or 
said,"  answered  Mrs.  Farrell.  "It  wasn't  my  own 
affair  altogether.  Nothing  that's  wrong  can  be 
one's  own  affair,  I  suppose;  it  belongs  to  the  whole 
world."  Mrs.  Gilbert  looked  a  little  surprised  at 
the  wisdom  of  this,  which  had  its  own  curious 
pathos,  coming  from  whom  it  did,  and  Mrs.  Farrell 
spoke  again  with  sudden  impetuosity,  "Oh,  Mrs. 
Gilbert,  I  hope  you  are  not  judging  me  harshly!" 

"No,  I  am  trying  not  to  judge  you  at  all." 

"Because,"  continued  Mrs.  Farrell,  "whatever 
I  have  done,  I  am  not  doing  my  own  pleasure  now, 
and  my  part  isn't  an  easy  one  to  play." 

"I'm  sorry  you  must  play  a  part  at  all — my  dear," 
said  Mrs.  Gilbert,  with  impulsive  kindness.  "Why 
must  you?  Or,  no,  now  it  is  all  your  affair,  and  I 
have  no  right  to  ask  you  anything.  Don't  tell  me 
— don't  speak  to  me  about  it!" 

228 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"But  if  I  don't  speak  to  you,  whom  shall  I  speak 
to?  And  I  shall  go  wild  if  I  don't  speak  to  some 
one!  Oh,  what  shall  I  do?" 

"Do?" 

"Yes,  yes;  it  drives  me  to  despair!  Ought  I  to 
break  with  him  now,  at  once,  or  wait  and  wait? 
Or  shall  I  go  on  and  marry  him?  I  respect  and 
honor  him  with  my  whole  heart,  indeed  I  do;  and 
if  he  took  me  away  with  him — away  to  Europe, 
somewhere — for  years  and  years,  I  know  I  should 
be  good,  and  I  should  try  hard  to  make  him  happy, 
and  never,  never  let  him  know  that  I  didn't  care  for 
him  as  he  did  for  me.  Women  often  marry  for 
money,  for  ambition,  for  mere  board  and  lodging; 
you  know  they  do;  and  why  shouldn't  I  marry  him 
because  I  can't  bear  to  tell  him  I'm  afraid  I  don't 
love  him?" 

"That's  a  question  that  nobody  can  answer  for 
you,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert.  "But  all  those  marriages 
are  abominable;  and  even  to  marry  from  respect 
seems  wrong — hideous." 

"Yes,  oh  yes,  it  is  hideous;  it  would  be  making 
this  wearisome  deceit  a  lifelong  burden.  I  know 
what  it  would  be  better  than  anyone  could  tell  me. 
I  feel  the  horror  of  it  every  minute,  and  it  isn't  for 
myself  that  I  care  now;  it's  the  shame  to  him;  it 
seems  to  ridicule  and  degrade  him;  it's  ghastly! 
And  he  so  generous  and  high-minded,  he  never 
could  think  that  I  wasn't  always  just  as  good  and 
constant  as  he  was.  No,  I'm  not  fit  for  him,  and  I 
never  was.  He's  whole  worlds  above  me,  and  it 
would  wear  my  life  out  trying  to  be  what  he  thinks 

229 


MRS.  FARRELL 

me,  and  even  then  I  couldn't  be  it.  Oh,  why  did  he 
fall  in  love  with  me,  when  there  are  so  many  women 
in  the  world  who  would  have  been  so  happy  in  the 
love  of  such  a  man?  Why  did  he  ever  see  me? 
Why  did  he  come  here?  Good-by,  Mrs.  Gilbert, 
good-by!  I  wish  I  were  dead!" 

Mrs.  Gilbert  caught  her  in  an  impetuous  embrace 
of  pity  and  atonement.  Yet,  an  hour  after,  when 
she  finally  parted  from  her,  it  was  by  no  means  with 
equal  tenderness;  it  was  guardedly,  almost  coldly. 

A  week  later,  Ben  Woodward  asked  his  mother's 
leave  to  go  visit  his  married  sister,  who  lived  at 
Rock  Island,  Illinois.  He  urged  that,  now  her 
boarders  were  mostly  gone,  she  did  not  need  him  so 
much  about  the  house ;  he  hung  his  head  and  kicked 
the  chips  of  the  woodpile  by  which  they  stood. 
She  looked  at  him  a  moment,  and,  fetching  a  long 
breath,  said  he  was  a  good  son  and  she  wished  he 
should  please  himself. 

The  next  morning  he  kissed  her  and  Rachel, 
shook  hands  with  his  father,  nodded  to  his  brothers, 
and  started  off  toward  the  village,  carrying  his  bag. 
At  the  foot  of  the  hill  on  which  the  village  stood 
he  met  Mrs.  Farrell,  who  was  coming  from  the  post- 
office  with  letters  in  one  hand.  With  the  other  she 
held  by  their  stems  some  bright  autumn  leaves,  and 
she  stooped  from  time  to  time  and  added  to  them 
from  the  fallen  splendors  about  her  feet.  It  ought 
to  have  been  a  poet  or  a  painter  who  met  Mrs.  Far 
rell  in  the  country  road,  under  the  tinted  maples, 
that  morning,  but  it  was  only  a  simple  farm  boy 
whose  soul  was  inarticulate  in  its  tender  pain. 

230 


MRS.  FARRELL 

When  she  saw  him  she  put  the  leaves  and  letters 
together  in  one  hand,  and  began  to  feel  in  her 
pocket  with  the  other.  His  face  flushed  as  he  came 
up  to  her,  where  she  stood  waiting  for  him,  and 
blanched  with  a  foolish,  hopeless  pleasure  in  the 
sight  of  her. 

"Why,  Ben!"  she  said,  sadly,  yet  with  an  eye 
that  would  gleam  a  little  as  she  let  it  stray  over  the 
poor  fellow's  uncouth  best  clothes,  "are  you  going 
away?"  She  must  have  known  that  he  was. 

"Yes,"  said  Ben,  uneasily. 

"And  did  you  mean  to  go  without  saying  good-by 
to  me?"  she  asked,  with  soft  reproach. 

"Well,  I  didn't  see  what  good  it  was  going  to  do." 

"Why,  we  might  never  meet  again,  Ben,"  she 
said,  solemnly.  And  as  Ben  shifted  his  bag  from  his 
one  hand  to  the  other,  she  took  the  hand  left  free 
and  tried  to  make  its  great  red  fingers  close  over 
something  she  pressed  into  the  palm.  '  *  I  want  you 
to  take  this  to  remember  me  by,  Ben,"  she  said; 
but  the  young  fellow,  glancing  at  the  gold  pencil 
she  had  left  in  his  grasp,  shook  his  head  and  put 
the  gift  back  in  her  hand. 

"I  don't  need  anything  to  remember  you  by,  Mrs. 
Farrell,"  he  said,  huskily,  looking  at  her  half- 
amused,  half-daunted  face.  "If  you  can  give  me 
anything  to  forget  you  by,  I'll  take  it,"  and  Ben, 
as  if  he  had  made  a  point  which  he  might  not  hope 
to  surpass,  was  going  to  press  by  her,  when  she 
placed  herself  full  in  front  of  him  and  would  not 
let  him. 

"Oh,  Ben,"  she  said,  "how  can  you  talk  so  to 
231 


MRS.  FARRELL 

me?  You  know  I  have  always  thought  you  such  a 
friend  of  mine,  and  you  know  I  like  you  and  think 
ever  so  much  of  your  good  opinion.  I  shall  never 
let  you  pass  till  you  take  back  those  cruel  words. 
Will  you  take  them  back?" 

"Yes,"  said  Ben,  helpless  before  those  still,  dark 
eyes,  "I  will  if  you  want  I  should." 

"And  will  you  try  to  remember  me — remember 
me  kindly,  and  not  think  hardly  of  anything  I've 
done?" 

"You  know  well  enough,  Mrs.  Farrell,"  said  the 
boy,  with  a  sort  of  ireful  pathos,  "that  I  would  do 
anything  you  asked  me  to,  and  always  would. 
Don't,  don't  mind  what  I  said.  You  know  how  I 
like  you,  and  wouldn't  forget  you  if  I  could." 

"Oh,  Ben,  Ben,  I'm  very  unhappy,  "she  broke  out. 

"Don't  mind  it,"  said  Ben,  with  the  egotism  of 
love,  but  touchingly  unselfish  even  in  this  egotism. 
"You  needn't  be  troubled  about  me.  I  always 
knew  just  as  well  as  you  that  it  was  all  foolishness, 
and  I  didn't  ever  mean  to  let  it  vex  you.  Don't 
mind  it;  I  shall  get  over  it,  I  suppose,  and  if  I 
never  do,  I  hope  even  when  you're  a  married 
woman  it  won't  be  any  harm  for  me  to  think  you 
cared  enough  for  me  to  be  sorry  that — that  I  was 
such  a  fool." 

She  looked  at  him,  puzzled  by  his  misconception, 
but,  divining  it,  she  said  instantly,  "No  indeed, 
Ben;  whatever  becomes  of  me,  I  shall  be  only  too 
proud  to  think  of  you  as  my  dear,  dear  friend.  I 
haven't  had  so  many  that  I  could  spare  you.  I 
only  wish  I  half  deserved  you.  Ben!"  cried  Mrs. 

232 


MRS.   FARRELL 

Farrell,  abruptly,  "do  you  know  what  I  wish  I 
was  ?  I  wish  I  was  five  or  six  years  younger,  so  as  to 
be  a  little  younger  than  you;  and  I  wish  I  was  a 
good,  simple  girl,  like  some  of  these  about  here, 
and  you  had  bought  a  farm  out  in  Iowa,  and  you 
were  taking  me  out  there  with  you  this  peaceful, 
lovely  morning." 

"Don't,  Mrs.  Farrell!"  implored  Ben. 

"I  do,  Ben,  I  do!  And  if  I  were  such  a  girl  as 
that,  I  would  work  for  you  like  a  slave  from  morning 
till  night ;  and  I  would  obey  you  in  everything;  and 
all  that  I  should  ask  would  be  that  you  should  keep 
me  there  out  of  sight  of  everybody,  and  never  let 
me  go  anywhere,  or  speak  to  a  living  soul  but 
you.  And,  oh,  Ben,  you  would  be  very  kind  and 
patient  with  me,  wouldn't  you?  But  it  can't  be, 
it  can't  be." 

She  stooped  down  and  gathered  up  some  letters 
which  had  slipped  from  her  hand;  Ben  let  her;  he 
had  his  bag  to  hold,  and  he  was  not  used  to  offering 
little  services  to  ladies.  When  she  lifted  her  face 
again  and  confronted  him,  "He  is  a  good  man,  too; 
don't  you  think  he  is,  Ben?"  she  asked,  brushing 
her  hand  across  her  eyes. 

"Yes;  there  a'n't  many  like  him,"  answered  Ben, 
soberly. 

"Do  you  think  he's  too  good  for  me?" 

"I  don't  think  anybody  could  be  that,  you  know 
well  enough,  Mrs.  Farrell,"  said  Ben,  with  a  note  of 
indignation,  as  if  he  suspected  a  latent  mockery  in 
this  appeal  to  his  judgment. 

"Yes,  yes,  that's  true,  I  know  that,"  said  Mrs. 
233 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Farrell,  hastily.      "I  meant,  don't  you  think  he's 
better  than— than  Mr.  Gilbert?" 

"I  never  had  anything  against  Mr.  Gilbert," 
answered  Ben,  loyally.  "He  took  good  care  of  his 
friend." 

1 '  Oh  yes !  But— but— Ben, ' '  she  faltered,  ' '  there 
is  something — something  I  would  like  to  ask  you. 
It's  a  very  strange  thing  to  ask  you;  but  there  is 
no  one  else.  Did  you  ever  think — sometimes  I  was 
afraid,  you  know,  that  Mr.  Gilbert — it  makes  me 
very,  very  unhappy — was  getting  to — to  care  for 
me-" 

"No,  I  never  thought  so,"  answered  Ben. 

"Oh,  I'm  so  glad.    But  if  he  had?" 

"I  should  say  such  a  man  ought  to  be  shot." 

"Yes,  oh  yes — he  ought  to  be  shot,"  she  assented, 
hysterically.  "But,  Ben — but  you  cared  for  me, 
didn't  you?" 

"Yes.  But  that  was  a  very  different  thing.  Mr. 
Easton  wasn't  my  friend,  as  he  was  Mr.  Gilbert's, 
and  I  commenced  caring  for  you  long  before  he  was 
laid  there  sick  and  helpless.  He  would  be  just  as 
much  to  blame  as  if  you  was  married  to  Mr.  Easton 
already.  I  don't  see  any  difference.  But  I  don't 
think  he  could.  You  must  have  been  mistaken." 

' '  Perhaps  I  was.  Yes,  I  must  have  been  mistaken. 
I'm  glad  to  have  you  speak  so  frankly,  Ben.  It  is 
too  horrible  to  believe.  For  if  he  had  been  so,  of 
course  it  could  only  be  because  he  saw,  or  thought 
he  saw,  something  in  me  that  would  let  him.  And 
you  never  could  think  anything  so  bad,  so  heartless, 
of  me,  could  you,  Ben?" 

234 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"No,  I  couldn't,  Mrs.  Farrell,"  answered  Ben, 
decidedly.  "What's  the  use—" 

"Thank  you,  Ben — thank  you.  I  knew  you 
couldn't;  it  would  be  too  monstrous.  Oh  yes,  it's 
just  like  some  horrid  dream.  Such  a  woman  as 
that  wouldn't  deserve  any  mercy — not  if  she  had 
allowed  him  to  think  so  for  one  single  instant. 
Would  she  ?" 

"Why,  we  can  all  find  mercy,  I  suppose,  if  we  go 
the  right  way  to  the  right  place  for  it,"  answered 
Ben,  seriously. 

"Yes — but  I  don't  mean  that  kind.  I  mean,  she 
wouldn't  deserve —  Ben,  if  you  were  in  Mr. 
Easton's  place,  and  the  girl  you  were  engaged  to 
had  allowed  some  one  else — just  for  the  excitement, 
you  know;  not  because  she  wanted  him  to,  or  was 
so  wicked  and  heartless,  but  just  foolish — to  think 
she  might  let  him  like  her,  you  never  would  speak  to 
her  again,  would  you,  Ben  ?  You  never  would  for 
give  her?" 

"No,  I  don't  know  as  I  could  overlook  a  thing 
like  that." 

"Of  course  you  couldn't!  You  always  see  things 
in  the  right  light,  Ben;  you  are  so  good — oh!  how 
cruel,  how  perfectly  unrelenting  you  are !  That  is — 
I  don't  mean  that — I  mean —  Oh,  Ben,  if  you 
felt  toward  her — I  oughtn't  to  say  it,  I  know;  but 
just  for  instance — as  you  feel,  as  you  used  to  feel, 
toward  me,  Ben" — she  implored,  while  her  tearful 
eyes  dwelt  on  his — "could  you  forgive  me — her,  I 
mean?" 

"I— I  don't  know,"  faltered  Ben. 
235 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Oh,  thank  you,  thank  you,  Ben!  But  you 
oughtn't,  you  oughtn't!"  she  cried.  "I  mustn't 
keep  you,  Ben.  Good-by.  And  now  you'll  let  me 
give  you  the  pencil,  won't  you?  It  isn't  for  you. 
It's  for  some  nice  girl  you'll  be  sure  to  find,  out 
there.  Tell  her  I  sent  it  to  her;  and,  oh,  tell  her 
the  best  thing  she  can  do  is  to  be  good !  I  hope  you'll 
have  a  pleasant  time  and  get  back  safely ;  I  sha'n't 
be  here  when  you  come  home." 

She  did  not  shake  hands  with  him  at  parting, 
and  they  went  their  several  ways.  At  the  turn  of 
the  road  she  looked  back  and  saw  him  watching 
her.  She  took  out  her  handkerchief  and  waved  it 
to  him;  then,  rounding  the  corner,  she  pressed  it 
to  her  eyes,  and  stooped  and  made  a  little  hasty 
toilet  at  the  brook  that  ran  along  the  roadside. 
When  she  rose  she  saw  Easton  at  the  head  of  the 
avenue,  coming  slowly  down  toward  her.  She  went 
courageously  to  meet  him.  "Are  my  eyes  red?" 
she  asked.  "I  have  just  been  shedding  the  parting 
tear  over  poor  Ben.  He's  a  good  boy,  and  I  felt 
sorry  for  him.  I've  been  his  first  love  for  several 
years,  you  know." 

"Yes,"  said  Easton,  with  the  superiority  that 
men  feel  toward  much  younger  men's  passions. 
"That  was  plain  enough  from  the  beginning." 

Mrs.  Farrell  looked  at  him.  He  was  pale  and 
thin  from  his  long  lying  in  bed,  but  his  old  tone 
and  manner  were  coming  back,  and  he  was  growing 
better,  though  he  was  still  far  from  strong.  They 
were  lingering  at  the  farm  while  the  fair  weather 
lasted,  that  he  might  profit  by  the  air  as  long  as  it 

236 


MRS.  FARRELL 

could  do  him  good,  though  he  had  meant  to  go 
before  this  time. 

"I've  brought  you  about  all  the  letters  there  were 
in  the  office,  this  morning,"  she  said.  "Do  you 
want  them  now?" 

"I  suppose  they  must  be  read.  Yes;  let  us  go 
back  to  the  piazza  and  open  them  there.  You'll 
be  glad  to  rest  after  your  walk  to  the  village." 

"Is  that  why  you  want  to  get  at  your  letters? 
I'm  not  tired  at  all,  and  I'd  rather  walk  on." 

"Well,  whatever  you  like.  You've  unmasked 
my  deceit  about  the  letters.  I  certainly  don't  care 
to  read  them.  I  see  that  I  had  better  never  try  to 
keep  anything  from  you." 

' '  Should  you  like  me  to  tell  you  everything  about 
myself?" 

"Why,  you  did  that  once,  didn't  you?" 

"Oh,  that  was  nothing.  I  mean  everything  I 
think  and  feel  and  do." 

' '  If  you  wished  to  tell  me.  I  can't  know  too  much 
about  you." 

"Don't  be  so  sure  of  that.  Suppose  I  had 
something  that  lay  very  heavy  on  my  conscience, 
and  that  I  didn't  like  to  tell  you.  I  ought  to, 
oughtn't  I?" 

"Why,  if  it  didn't  concern  me — " 

"But  if  it  did  concern  you?" 

"Well,  still,  I'm  not  so  sure  about  your  obligation 
to  tell  it.  If  you  could  endure  to  keep  it,  you  might 
have  a  greater  right  to  keep  it  than  I  should  have 
to  know  it.  The  only  comfort  of  confession  is  that 
it  seems  to  disown  our  wrong  and  make  it  a  sort 

237 


MRS.  FARRELL 

of  public  property,  a  part  of  evil  in  general,  and  lets 
us  begin  new,  like  people  who  have  taken  the  benefit 
of  the  bankrupt  law."  He  spoke  these  truisms  in  a 
jesting  tone.  "I  shall  always  be  willing  to  adopt 
half  of  your  sins.  How  have  you  been  injuring  me, 
Rosabel?"  he  asked,  with  the  smile  which  Mrs. 
Farrell's  speculative  seriousness  was  apt  to  call 
forth;  the  best  men  find  it  so  hard  to  believe  that 
a  charming  woman  can  be  in  earnest  about  any 
thing  but  her  good  looks. 

"Oh,  I  was  supposing  a  case,"  she  answered,  with 
a  sigh.  "You  do  think  I  have  some  faults,  then?" 

"Yes,  I  think  you  have;  but  that  doesn't  make 
any  difference." 

"But  you  can't  pretend  you  like  them?" 

"Let  me  think!    Do  I  like  your  faults?" 

1 '  Don't  joke.  Which  do  you  think  is  the  worst  ? " 
she  demanded,  stopping  and  confronting  him  with 
a  look  of  solemnity  which  he  found  amusing. 

"Upon  my  word,"  he  answered,  with  a  laugh,  "I 
don't  believe  I  could  say." 

"What  are  any  of  my  faults?" 

"How  can  I  tell?"  " 

"Am  I  willful?  Am  I  proud?  Am  I  bad-tem 
pered?  What's  the  thing  you  would  find  it  hardest 
to  forgive  me?" 

"You  must  give  me  time  to  think.  And  when 
I've  forgiven  you  a  great  many  times  for  a  great 
variety  of  offenses  I  will  tell  you  which  I  found  the 
hardest.  You  must  remember  that  I've  had  no 
sort  of  experience  yet." 

"That's  because  you  don't  know  at  all  how 

238 


MRS.   FARRELL 

badly  I've  treated  you.  What  do  you  think  of  my 
laughing  at  you  that  day  when  I  went  off  to  the 
schoolhouse  with  Rachel  Woodward?  Don't  you 
consider  it  heartless?  If  I  hadn't  been  the  worst 
person  in  the  world,  could  I  have  done  it?" 

Easton  smiled  at  the  zeal  of  her  self-condemna 
tion.  "I  dare  say  there  had  been  something  very 
ridiculous  in  my  behavior.  If  you  can  remember 
any  particular  points  that  amused  you,  I  shouldn't 
mind  laughing  them  over  with  you,  now." 

"How  good  you  are!"  she  murmured,  regarding 
him  absently.  "I  should  be  the  worst  woman  in 
the  world,  shouldn't  I,  if  I  deceived  you  in  the  least 
thing?  But  I  never  will;  no,  no,  I  couldn't!  Your 
not  thinking  it  anything  would  only  make  it  the 
harder  to  bear.  Don't  you  know  how  killing  it  is 
to  have  people  suppose  you're  too  good  to  do  things 
when  you've  done  them?  It's  awful.  That's  one 
good  thing  about  Rachel  Woodward.  She  thinks 
I'm  a  miserable  sinner,  but  she  likes  me;  and  you 
mustn't  like  me  unless  you  think  I'm  a  miserable 
sinner.  Oh  no,  I  couldn't  let  you.  I'll  tell  you:  I 
want  you  to  think  me  perfectly  reckless  and  fickle ; 
I  want  you  to  believe  that  I'm  so  foolish,  don't  you 
know,  that  even  while  you  were  lying  sick  there, 
if  he'd  let  me,  I  should  have  been  quite  capable  of 
flirting  with — with  Ben  Woodward." 

Easton  burst  into  a  laugh:  "That's  altogether 
too  abominable  for  anybody  to  believe,  Rosabel. 
Can't  you  try  me  with  something  a  shade  less 
atrocious?  Come,  I'm  willing  to  think  ill  of  you, 
since  you  wish  it;  but  do  be  reasonable!  Won't 

239 


MRS.   FARRELL 

you?'*  he  asked,  looking  round  into  her  face,  as 
they  walked  along.  "Well,  then,  try  to  help  me  in 
another  way.  What  shall  I  do  about  Rachel  Wood 
ward?  I  don't  know  how  I'm  to  express  my  grati 
tude  fitly  or  acceptably  for  all  the  trouble  she's  had 
with  me  in  this  most  humiliating  sickness  of  mine. 
Do  you  suppose  she  could  be  persuaded  into  accept 
ing  any  sort  of  help  ?  Do  you  think  she  would  care 
to  become  a  painter,  if  she  had  the  facilities  quite 
to  her  mind?" 

"She  would,"  replied  Mrs.  Farrell,  "if  she  didn't 
expect  sometime  to  get  married,  like  other  people; 
there's  always  that  if  in  a  woman's  aspirations. 
But  that's  neither  here  nor  there.  If  you  think  you 
can  ever  contrive  to  reward  Rachel  Woodward  for 
doing  what  she  thinks  her  duty,  you're  very  much 
mistaken." 

"It's  rather  hard  to  be  left  so  much  in  her 
debt." 

"Yes;  but  she  doesn't  consider  you  indebted; 
that's  one  comfort." 

Easton  mused  awhile.  "Do  you  know,"  he  said, 
presently,  "I  sometimes  wonder  Gilbert  didn't  take 
a  fancy  to  our  difficult  little  friend.  They're  suffi 
ciently  unlike,  and  he  would  be  just  the  man  to  feel 
the  pale  charm  of  her  character." 

"Do  you  think  so?"  asked  Mrs.  Farrell,  with 
cold  evasion.  "I  supposed  Mr.  Gilbert  was  too 
worldly  a  man  to  care  for  a  simple  country  girl  like 
Rachel  Woodward." 

"Oh,  you're  very  much  mistaken.  He'd  be  alto 
gether  unworldly  in  a  matter  of  that  kind.  He 

240 


MRS.  FARRELL 

would  be  true  to  himself  at  any  cost.  That  was 
what  always  charmed  me  so  in  Gilbert.  He  had 
the  air  and  talk  of  a  light  man,  but  he  was  as  true 
as  steel  under  it  all.  Every  day  a  man  has  a  hun 
dred  occasions  to  prove  himself  mean  or  great,  and 
Gilbert,  without  any  show  of  being  principled  this 
way  or  that,  always  did  the  manly  and  generous 
and  loyal  thing." 

"Shall  we  go  back,  now?"  asked  Mrs.  Farrell. 
"I  am  rather  tired,  after  all." 

''Will  you  take  my  arm?"  asked  Easton.  "It 
isn't  of  much  use  yet,  I'm  ashamed  to  think,  but 
it  will  be.  Did  you  despise  me  when  I  was  lying 
there  sick?" 

"Despise  you?" 

"Why,  I  think  a  sick  man  is  a  contemptible  kind 
of  creature.  You  women  seem  to  be  able  to  make 
anything  gracious  and  appropriate,  even  suffering; 
but  a  sick  man  can  only  be  an  odious  burden. 
We  ought  to  be  allowed  to  crawl  away  like  hurt 
animals  into  holes  and  clefts  of  rocks,  and  take  the 
chances,  unseen,  of  dying  or  living.  Were  you  able 
to  pity  me  very  much?" 

"I  don't  see  why  you  ask  such  things,"  she  fal 
tered.  "Don't  you  think  I  did?" 

"Oh  yes,  too  much.  Sometimes  I'm  afraid  that, 
without  your  knowing  it,  it's  been  all  pity  from  the 
beginning.  I  dare  say  every  decently  modest  man 
wonders  what  a  woman  finds  to  love  in  him.  I 
wanted  you  to  love  me  from  the  first  instant  I  saw 
you,  but  I  never  concealed  from  myself  that  I 
wasn't  worth  a  thought  of  yours.  What  a  curious 
16  241 


MRS.   FARRELL 

thing  it  is  that  makes  one  willing  to  receive  every 
thing  for  nothing."  He  laid  his  left  hand  upon  her 
fingers  where  they  passively  clung  to  his  right  arm. 
' '  Why,  how  cold  your  hand  is ! "  he  said.  ' '  It  seems 
incredible  that  it's  going  to  be  my  hand  some  day! 
Everything  else  under  the  sun  has  its  price;  you 
slave  for  it,  you  risk  your  life  for  it,  you  buy  it 
somehow.  But  the  divinest  thing  in  the  world  is 
given,  it  has  no  price,  it's  invaluable;  we  can't 
merit  a  woman's  love  any  more  than  we  can  merit 
God's  mercy.  Come,  take  yourself  from  me  again ! 
I've  never  given  you  a  fair  chance  to  say  me  nay. 
You  must  acknowledge  that  you  never  had  time  to 
answer  that  question  of  mine.  Before  you  could 
decide  whether  you  could  endure  me  or  not  you 
had  to  pity  me  so  much  that  you  were  biased  in 
my  favor.  I  ought  to  set  you  free,  and  let  you  judge 
again  whether  you  would  have  me!" 

Her  breath  went  and  came  quickly,  as  he  spoke 
in  this  mixed  jest  and  earnest.  He  tried  to  make 
her  meet  his  eye,  peering  round  into  her  face,  but 
she  would  not  look  at  him.  If  this  was  the  release, 
the  opportunity,  so  long  and  wildly  desired,  it 
found  her  helpless  to  seize  it.  She  moved  her  head 
from  side  to  side  like  one  stifling.  "Oh,  don't! 
How  can  you?"  she  gasped.  "Don't  talk  so  any 
more,"  she  entreated.  "I  can't  bear  it!" 

She  turned  her  face  away;  he  tenderly  pressed 
her  arm  against  his  side.  They  were  near  the  house 
again,  and  she  slipped  her  hand  from  his  arm  and 
fled  indoors.  He  blushed  with  joy,  and  walked  on 
down  the  birch  avenue,  where  she  saw  him  sitting, 

242 


MRS.  FARRELL 

after  a  while,  on  a  stone  by  the  wayside.  She  went 
to  join  him,  holding  forward,  as  she  drew  near  him, 
a  handful  of  letters.  "We  both  forgot  these,"  she 
said,  with  a  dim  smile. 

"Oh  yes,"  he  laughed.  She  glanced  down  at  the 
stone  where  he  sat,  and  up  at  that  clump  of  birches 
through  whose  thin  foliage  the  sun  fell  upon  him, 
and  shivered  with  the  recognition  of  the  spot  where 
she  had  parted  from  Gilbert.  "Sit  down,  Rosabel," 
he  said,  making  a  place  for  her  at  his  side.  "This 
stone  is  large  enough  for  both  of  us.  I  want  you  to 
help  me  read  my  letters." 

"No,  no!"  she  faintly  pleaded;  "let  me  stand 
awhile.  And  do  you — do  you  think  it's  well  for 
you  to  sit — just  here?" 

"Why,  yes,"  he  returned.  "It  seems  a  suffi 
ciently  salubrious  spot,  and  this  is  a  most  obliging 
rock.  If  you  won't  share  it  with  me — here!"  he 
said,  touching  another  stone  in  front  of  his  own  seat, 
"sit  here!  Then  I  can  see  your  face  whenever  I 
look  up,  and  that  will  be  better  even  than  having 
you  at  my  side.  Ah !  Now  for  the  letters, ' '  he  cried, 
when  she  had  suffered  him  to  arrange  her  as  he 
would,  and  she  gave  them  into  his  hand. 

He  ran  them  quickly  over  before  opening  any, 
and,  "Why!"  he  exclaimed,  holding  up  one  of 
them,  "did  you  know  whom  we  have  kept  waiting? 
Gilbert !  It's  too  bad,  poor  old  fellow !  Didn't  you 
notice  his  letter,  you  incurious  Fatima?" 

"I  never  saw  his  handwriting.  How  could  I 
know  his  letter?" 

"Of  course!  That  might  have  occurred  to  me  if 
243 


MRS.  FARRELL 

I  hadn't  known  it  so  well  myself.  Never  mind! 
We'll  keep  Gilbert  a  little  longer,  since  we've  kept 
him  so  long  already,  and  have  him  last  of  all,  to 
take  away  the  bad  taste,  if  these  are  not  pleasant 
reading."  He  laid  Gilbert's  letter  aside,  and  opened 
the  others  and  commented  on  them  one  after 
another;  but  her  eyes  continually  wandered  to  the 
unopened  letter,  do  what  she  might  to  keep  them 
on  the  level  of  the  page  he  was  reading.  At  last  he 
took  up  Gilbert's  letter;  a  shiver  ran  through  her 
as  he  tore  open  the  envelope,  and  she  drew  herself 
closer  together. 

"Why,  are  you  cold,  my  dear?"  he  asked,  glanc 
ing  at  her  before  he  began  to  read.  " Aren't  you 
well  ?  Let  us  go  up  to  the  house,  and  read  the  letter 
there." 

"No,  no,"  she  answered,  steadily;  "I'm  not 
cold,  I'm  perfectly  well.  I  was  curious  to  know 
what  he  said;  that  was  all.  Do  go  on." 

Easton  opened  the  sheet,  and  began  to  read  to 
himself,  as  people  often  do  with  letters  when  they 
propose  to  read  them  aloud.  "Oh!"  he  said, 
presently,  "excuse  me!  I  didn't  know  what  I  was 
doing.  Do  you  think  you'll  be  able  to  stand  all 
this?"  He  held  up  the  eight  pages  of  Gilbert's 
letter,  and  then  he  began  faithfully  with  the  date, 
and  read  on  to  the  end.  The  first  part  of  the  letter 
was  given  to  Gilbert's  regrets  at  not  having  been 
able  to  write  before.  He  took  it  for  granted  that 
his  sister-in-law  had  told  Easton  of  his  sudden  call 
to  go  to  South  America  on  that  business  of  Mitchell 
&  Martineiro,  who  wished  him  to  look  after  some 

244 


MRS.  FARRELL 

legal  complications  of  their  affairs  in  Brazil,  which 
needed  an  American  lawyer's  eye;  and  that  she 
had  made  all  amends  she  could  for  his  going  so 
suddenly. 

You  were  asleep  [he  wrote]  when  I  went  to  take  leave 
of  you,  and  on  the  whole  I'm  not  sorry.  A  good -by  is  good  at 
any  distance,  and  I  knew  I  could  send  you  mine.  I  didn't 
suppose  I  should  be  so  long  about  it;  but  the  truth  is  that 
what  with  putting  my  own  business  in  order  before  going, 
and  instructing  myself  about  Mitchell  &  Martineiro's,  in  a 
case  where  I  can  represent  their  interests  only  in  an  exterior 
sort  of  way,  I  have  not  had  a  moment  that  I  could  call  yours. 
I  might  have  sent  you  a  line,  of  course,  but  I  waited  till  I 
could  do  more  than  that.  I  knew  you  were  getting  well,  and  I 
need  not  worry  about  leaving  you  before  you  were  quite  well. 
And  now,  after  all,  when  I  have  a  few  hours  before  sailing,  and 
I  sit  down  to  write  to  you,  I  do  not  know  that  I  have  much  to 
say.  Perhaps  if  I  had  had  days  before  this,  it  would  have  come 
to  the  same  thing.  In  fact,  it  could  have  come  only  to  one 
thing  under  any  circumstances.  It  could  have  come  only  to 
my  telling  you,  with  whatever  force  I  had,  that  in  all  our 
recent  unhappiness  I  felt  myself  wholly  and  solely  at  fault. 
I  do  not  merely  mean  that  you  were  blameless,  but  that  every 
one  else  but  myself  was  so.  I  hope  this  will  not  come  to  your 
eye  like  an  impertinence;  it  lies  under  mine  like  a  very  vital 
thing.  I  do  not  know  what  your  measure  of  my  blame  is, 
whether  it  has  grown  greater  or  not  since  we  parted;  but 
in  my  own  sight  my  treatment  of  you  seems  inexpiable.  Of 
course  I  feel  that  in  this  separation  of  ours  there  are  many 
chances  that  we  may  not  meet  again;  but  I  should  like  to  say 
this  to  you  if  we  were  to  meet  every  day  all  our  lives.  I  will 
not  appeal  to  the  kindness  of  your  heart;  there  ought  to  be 
none  for  me  in  it.  But  do  not  forget  me,  Easton;  and  if 
ever  in  the  future  you  can  think  more  leniently  of  me  than  I 
deserve,  I  shall  be  glad  of  your  pity. 

"Is  that  all?"  asked  Mrs.  Farrell,  hoarsely. 
"Yes,  that's  all,"  returned  Easton,  turning  the 
245 


MRS.   FARRELL 

pages  absently  over,  and  looking  up  and  down  the 
leaves. 

Whatever  had  been  her  purposes,  or  hopes,  or 
dreads,  the  moment  had  come  from  which  she  could 
not  recoil,  and  in  which  she  stood  as  absolutely 
unfriended  as  in  the  face  of  death.  Everything  had 
led  to  this  at  last ;  it  might  have  been  said  that  she 
was  born  for  this  alone,  so  supreme  was  it  over  all 
other  fates  and  chances.  If  she  had  hoped  for  help 
from  any  source — from  Easton's  possible  suspicion, 
from  the  light  in  which  she  had  tried  to  see  what 
she  had  done  with  others'  eyes,  from  some  confes 
sion  of  Gilbert's  in  this  letter  of  his — it  was  all  in 
vain.  Everything  was  remanded  to  her,  and  she 
was  to  make  her  choice,  with  none  to  urge  or  stay 
her.  She  sat  and  stared  at  the  man  who,  she  knew, 
would  have  given  his  life  to  defend  her  from  others, 
but  who  was  so  powerless  now  to  help  her  against 
herself.  Of  all  the  contending  passions  of  her  soul 
— shame,  fear,  resentment,  and  chiefly  a  frantic 
longing  to  discredit  the  reality  of  what  was,  and 
had  been — a  momentary  scorn  came  uppermost. 

"So!"  she  cried.  "And  that's  all  he  had  to  say!" 
She  caught  the  letter  from  Easton's  hand,  ran  her 
eye  swiftly  over  the  closing  page,  and  flung  it  back 
to  him.  "Yes,  he  was  afraid  to  write  it,  two  hun 
dred  miles  away ;  he  leaves  it  all  to  me.  Well,  then, 
I  will  tell  you—  Oh,"  she  broke  off,  "do  you 
love  me  very,  very  much?  Yes,  I  must  tell  you, 
for  there  is  no  one  else,  and,  no  matter  what  hap 
pens,  you  must  know  it."  She  looked  at  him  in  an 
agony  of  terror  and  pity;  she  could  not  take  her 

246 


MRS.  FARRELL 

eyes  from  him  while  she  spoke  the  words  that  now 
came.  "He  was  in  love  with  me;  he  said  so  the 
last  moment  I  saw  him;  he  was  so  from  the  first. 
It  was  that  which  made  him  quarrel  with  you,  and 
it  is  that  which  makes  him — he  thinks  I've  told 
you — ask  your  pity  now." 

In  the  ghastly  silence  that  ensued,  they  found 
that  they  had  both  risen,  and  he  stood  with  one 
hand  resting  against  the  trunk  of  the  birch  beneath 
which  they  had  been  sitting;  Gilbert's  letter  had 
fallen,  and  lay  on  the  ground  between  them. 

Easton  made  no  answer,  and  tried  to  make  none, 
standing  in  a  hapless  maze.  The  silence  seemed 
interminable;  but  it  was  also  intolerable;  she  re 
called  him  to  himself  with  a  wild  "Well!"  Then 
he  seemed  to  find  his  voice  a  great  way  off,  and  a 
husky  murmur  preceded  his  articulate  speech. 

"Have  I  kept  you  apart?"  he  asked.  "Do  you 
love  him?" 

' '  Love  him  ?    I  loathe  him ! ' ' 

She  shuddered  to  see  the  hope  that  rushed  into 
his  face,  when  he  said,  "Then  I  pity  him  with  all 
my  heart.  How  could  he  help  loving  you?" 

She  wrung  her  hands  in  despair.  ' '  Oh,  why  don't 
you  kill  me,  and  spare  me  this.  How  can  I  tell  you 
and  make  you  understand?  He  never  would  have 
dared  to  speak  to  me  if  I  had  not —  He  never 
would  have  dared  to  speak  if  he  had  believed  I 
loved  you!" 

"Do  you  love  me?"  he  asked,  as  if  he  regarded 
nothing  else  but  that,  and  he  searched  with  his 
clear  gaze  the  eyes  which  she  was  powerless  to  avert 

247 


MRS.  FARRELL 

She  tried  to  speak,  and  could  not.  The  shaine,  more 
cruel  than  any  crime  can  bring,  which  a  man  feels 
in  such  a  disillusion,  crimsoned  his  pale  visage,  and 
his  head  fell  upon  his  breast.  Again  the  terrible 
silence  held  them  both. 

"Oh,  don't,  don't!"  she  wailed,  at  last.  "What 
must  you  think  of  me?  I  did  believe  that  I  loved 
you  once — that  day  when  you  asked  me;  and  then 
when  you  were  taken  sick,  and  I  thought  you  might 
die,  how  could  I  help  caring  for  you?  And  after 
ward,  when  you  were  better,  and  you  never  showed 
any  misgiving,  I  couldn't  undeceive  you;  it  had  to 
go  on.  I  always  respected  you  more  than  anyone 
in  the  world;  you're  the  best  man  I  ever  saw; 
better  than  I  ever  dreamed  of;  it  frightened  me  to 
think  how  far  too  good  for  me  you  were.  And  why 
do  you  blame  me  so  much,  now?"  she  piteously 
implored.  "You  said,  once,  that  you  didn't  ask 
me  to  love  you;  that  all  you  wanted  was  to 
love  me." 

Easton  rubbed  his  hand  wearily  over  his  fore 
head,  and  drew  a  long  breath.  "If  I  blamed  you 
I  was  wrong,"  he  answered,  gravely.  "It  was  my 
fault/* 

His  hand  began  to  tremble  on  the  birch,  and  he 
sank  down  on  the  rock  where  he  had  been  sitting. 
She  saw  his  faltering,  and  dropped  on  her  knees 
before  him,  and  instinctively  cast  one  arm  about 
him  to  support  him.  He  put  it  away.  "I'm  per 
fectly  well,"  he  said,  with  his  deathly  face.  "But 
I  shall  sit  here  awhile  before  I  go  back  to  the  house. 
Don't — don't  let  me  keep  you." 

248 


MRS.  FARRELL 

The  dismissal  seemed  to  strike  her  back  from  him, 
but  she  did  not  rise.  She  only  dropped  her  face  in 
the  hollow  of  her  rejected  arm,  and  moaned,  "Oh, 
how  you  must  despise  me !  But  don't  drive  me  from 
you!" 

"I  didn't  mean  that,"  he  said;  "I  thought  of 
sparing  you." 

"But  don't  spare  me!  It's  that  that  drives  me 
wild.  I  want  you  to  tell  me  what  it  is  I've  done.  I 
want  you  to  judge  me." 

"Judge  yourself,  Rosabel.    I  will  not." 

"But  I  can't  have  any  mercy  on  myself!  Oh, 
keep  me  from  myself!  Don't  cast  me  off!  I  know 
I'm  not  .worthy  of  you,  but  if  you  love  me,  take  me! 
I  will  be  a  good  wife  to  you,  indeed  I  will." 

"Oh  no,"  said  Easton,  in  the  tone  of  a  man 
hurt  beyond  all  solace,  who  faintly  refuses  some 
compassionately  proffered,  impossible  kindness.  "I 
have  loved  you.  Heaven  knows  how  dearly,  and  I 
could  have  waited  patiently  any  length  of  time  in 
the  hope  of  your  love;  that  was  what  I  meant 
when  I  said  I  didn't  ask  you  to  love  me  then. 
But  now—" 

She  must  have  felt  the  exquisite  manliness  of  his 
intention  toward  her.  Perhaps  she  contrasted  the 
grandeur  which  would  not  reproach  her  by  a  word 
or  look,  with  the  relentless  bitterness  in  which  Gil 
bert  had  retaliated  all  upon  her.  She  had  always 
admired  Easton ;  it  may  be  that  in  this  moment  she 
felt  a  thrill  of  the  supreme  tenderness.  She  sud 
denly  clung  to  his  arm.  "But  I  want  you  to  take 
me!  "she  cried.  "Don't  you  trust  me?  Don't  you 

249 


MRS.   FARRELL 

think  I  know  my  own  heart,  even  now?  Oh,  if  you 
will  only  believe  in  me  again,  I  know  I  shall  love 
you!" 

"No!"  said  Easton.  "I  love  you  too  much  for 
that." 

"And  it  is  all  over,  then?  Do  you  break  your 
engagement?" 

"It's  broken.  You  must  go  free  of  me.  I  know 
you  would  try  to  give  me  what  you  cannot;  but 
only  misery  could  come  of  trying.  It  would  be 
worse  than  my  mistake  with  Gilbert,  when  I  ac 
cepted  a  sacrifice  from  him  that  no  man  should 
accept  from  another,  because  I  believed  that  I 
could  have  done  as  much  for  him.  We  thought 
it  our  bond  of  friendship,  but  it  must  always  have 
been  a  galling  chain  to  him.  And  you  are  ask 
ing  to  do  a  thousand  times  more  than  he  did! 
No,  no;  you  would  only  be  starving  yourself  to 
beggar  me.  If  you  loved  me,  all  that's  happened 
would  be  nothing;  but  if  you  had  married  me, 
without  loving  me,  you  would  have  done  me  a 
wrong  that  I  could  never  have  pardoned.  Don't 
accuse  yourself,"  he  said.  "If  you  had  loved  me, 
nothing  of  all  this  could  have  happened.  Think  of 
that.  It  was  my  mistake  more  than  yours;  you 
were  unfairly  bound  to  me.  Come,"  he  said,  rising 
with  a  sudden  access  of  strength  that  belied  his 
pale  looks,  "I  must  go  to-day."  And  he  led  the 
way  back  to  the  house  in  a  silence  which  neither 
broke. 

She  did  not  answer  him  by  words,  then  or  after 
ward.  But  when  they  entered  the  dark  of  the  hall 

250 


MRS.   FARRELL 

doorway  together,  she  expressed  all  by  an  action 
which  was  not  the  less  characteristic  for  being  so 
humble  and  childlike;  she  caught  up  his  hand, 
and,  holding  it  a  moment  with  a  clinging  stress, 
carried  it  to  her  mouth  and  reverently  kissed  it. 
That  was  their  farewell,  and  it  was  both  silent  and 
passive  on  his  part.  He  looked  at  her  with  eyes 
that  she  did  not  meet,  and  moved  his  lips  as  if  he 
would  say  something,  but  made  no  sound. 


Chapter  XIV 

THE  next  morning,  after  Mrs.  Farrell  had 
gone,  Rachel  went  with  mechanical  exact 
ness  about  the  work  of  putting  in  order 
the  room  where  Easton  had  lain  sick.  Her  mother 
came  to  the  door  and,  looking  in,  hesitated  a  mo 
ment  before  she  crossed  the  threshold  and  sat  down 
in  the  chair  that  stood  just  inside. 

"I  don't  know  as  you've  got  any  call  to  hurry  so 
about  it,  Rachel,"  she  said,  with  a  granite  quiet. 

"I'd  just  as  soon,  mother;  I'd  rather,"  answered 
the  girl,  as  stonily,  not  ceasing  from  her  work. 

The  mother  put  her  hand  to  her  passive  mouth 
and  then  rubbed  it  up  over  her  cheek  and  across  her 
forehead,  and  drew  a  long,  noiseless  breath,  follow 
ing  the  movements  of  her  daughter  about  the  room 
with  her  eyes.  "I  suppose  we  sha'n't  hear  from 
Benny,  hardly,  for  a  week  or  more,"  she  said,  after 
a  pause  of  several  minutes.  Rachel  did  not  reply, 
and  her  mother  asked,  after  another  pause,  "Rachel, 
what  do  you  believe  made  him  so  set  on  going  away? 
Do  you  think  it  was — " 

"I  don't  want  you  should  ask  me,  mother, 
anything,"  answered  Rachel,  nervously. 

The  mother  waited  a  moment  before  she  said, 
perhaps  with  that  insensibility  to  others'  nerves 
which  years  often  bring,  "I  was  afraid  the  boy 

252 


MRS.  FARRELL 

might  have  got  to  caring  about  her.  Do  you  think 
he  had?" 

"Yes,  I  think  he  had,"  replied  Rachel,  abruptly, 
as  if  the  words  had  been  wrenched  from  her. 

Once  more  the  mother  waited  before  she  spoke. 
She  had  never  talked  gossip  with  her  children,  and 
perhaps  she  was  now  reconciling  to  her  conscience 
the  appearance  of  gossip  in  what  she  had  to  say. 
"I  always  thought,"  she  began,  "that  they  were 
both  as  fine  young  men  as  I  almost  ever  saw.  I 
never  saw  more  of  a  friend  than  the  other  one  was 
to  this  one.  Do  you  think  she  was  much  sorry 
for  what  she  did  to  part  them?" 

"Yes,  I  think  she  was.  She  did  more  than  she 
meant,  and  I  don't  know  as  we  ought  to  be  made  to 
answer  for  more  harm  than  we  mean." 

''No,"  said  Mrs.  Woodward.  "At  least  it  isn't 
for  us  to  say,  here.  Did  you  like  her  as  well  at  the 
last  as  you  used  to?" 

"Yes,  I  liked  her,"  answered  Rachel.  "Nobody 
could  help  that.  She  was  very  unhappy,  and  I  never 
had  any  call  to  feel  hard  against  her — on  my  own 
account." 

"I  don't  know  as  I  ever  knew  a  person  quite  like 
her,"  mused  Mrs.  Woodward.  "I  don't  know  as  I 
should  ever  rightly  understand  her,  and  I  won't 
judge  her,  for  one;  she'll  find  p'enty  to  do  that. 
I  don't  believe  but  what  her  feelings  were  led  away 
for  a  while  by  the  other  one,  and  I  don't  see  as  they 
ever  rightly  came  back  to  this  one,  even  supposing 
that  she  ever  did  care  much  for  him." 

"Oh,  mother,  mother,  mother!"  the  girl  broke 
253 


MRS.  FARRELL 

out,  and  cast  herself  into  a  chair,  and  hid  her  face 
on  the  bed. 

A  distress  passed  over  the  stony  composure  of  the 
elder  woman's  face,  but  she  sat  quiet,  and  did  not 
go  near  her  child  or  touch  her.  What  comfort  her 
children  got  from  her  went  from  heart  to  heart,  or 
rather  from  conscience  to  conscience,  without  open 
demonstration;  she  hid  her  natural  affections  as  if 
they  were  sins,  but  they  ruled  her  in  secret,  and 
doubtless  now  her  heart  bled  with  the  pity  her 
arms  withheld.  She  did  not  move  from  her  place, 
and  while  the  girl  sobbed  out  the  secret  of  a  love 
which  she  had  never  yet  owned  to  herself,  the 
mother  did  not  show  by  any  sign  or  change  of 
countenance  that  the  revelation  either  surprised  or 
shocked  her.  She  may  indeed  have  always  sus 
pected  it,  but  however  that  was,  she  now  accepted 
the  fact  as  she  would  any  calamity,  in  silence,  and 
whatever  inward  trouble  it  gave  her  did  not  appear 
even  to  the  solitude  in  which  Rachel's  hidden  face 
left  her.  She  waited  patiently,  but  when  at  last 
the  girl  lifted  her  face  and  sat  with  her  head 
thrown  back  and  her  eyelids  fallen,  the  mother 
still  did  not  speak;  she  left  her  to  deal  with  her 
pain  alone,  as  was  best.  But  that  evening  she 
came  to  Rachel's  chamber  with  her  lamp  in  her 
hand,  and  took  her  place  near  her  where  she  lay 
listless  in  her  rocking-chair. 

"Before  Mrs.  Gilbert  went  away,"  the  mother 
abruptly  began,  "she  came  and  had  a  little  talk 
with  me  about  you,  Rachel.  I  never  told  you,  and 
I  don't  know  as  I  ever  should." 

254 


MRS.   FARRELL 

Rachel  gave  no  token  of  interest.  Mrs.  Wood 
ward  went  on: 

"She  seemed  to  think  a  good  deal  of  that  picture 
of  yours,  and  she  spoke  as  if  you'd  ought  not  to 
neglect  any  providence  that  put  it  in  your  way  to 
improve  yourself.  I  don't  use  her  words,  but  that's 
what  they  come  to  in  the  end.  She  said  if  you  would 
like  to  go  down  and  study  drawing  in  Boston  or 
New  York,  this  winter,  she  wanted  I  should  let  her 
lend  you  the  money  to  do  it.  I  was  put  to  it  what 
to  say  without  seeming  to  hurt  her  feelings.  I 
didn't  make  any  direct  answer  at  the  time,  and  I 
haven't  since.  I  wa'n't  sure  in  my  own  mind 
whether  we  should  do  right  to  accept  of  such  an 
offer  unless  we  could  see  our  way  clear  to  pay  the 
money  back,  and  what  made  me  more  doubtful  was 
her  saying  that  you'd  ought  to  be  very  certain  of 
your  own  feelings,  whether  you  really  wanted  to  be 
a  painter  or  not,  for  if  you  didn't  it  would  be  a 
misery  every  way  if  you  was  one.  I  don't  know  a 
great  deal  about  such  things,  but  I  thought  that  was 
sensible.  She  said  there  wa'n't  any  doubt  about 
your  making  a  living  that  way,  if  once  you  gave 
your  mind  to  it." 

Still  Rachel  did  not  change  her  posture  or  expres 
sion,  but  she  passed  her  fingers  over  the  hem  of  her 
apron  across  her  lap. 

"As  to  the  money,"  Mrs.  Woodward  went  on, 
"there's  your  school  money  in  the  bank;  you've 
worked  hard  enough  for  that,  and  it's  rightfully 
yours.  I  know  you  meant  to  give  it  to  James  for 
his  schooling,  but  now  it  don't  seem  quite  fair  you 

255 


MRS.   FARRELL 

should.  Why  don't  you  take  it  yourself,  and  go  off 
somewheres,  and  study,  the  way  Mrs.  Gilbert  said? " 

"I  don't  want  the  money,  mother,"  said  the  girl, 
coldly. 

Mrs.  Woodward  waited  awhile  before  she  asked, 
"Don't  you  feel  sure  't  you  want  to  study  in  that 
way?" 

"Yes,  I  think  I  could  do  it.  Of  course  it  isn't  as 
if  I  were  a  man,  but  I  believe  I  could  be  a  painter, 
and  I  should  like  it  better  than  teaching." 

"Then  why  don't  you  take  up  with  the  idea? 
It  would  be  a  little  change  for  you;  and  maybe,  if 
you  was  away  from  the  place  for  a  while,  you  might 
— get  to  feeling  differently." 

The  mother  was  patient  with  her  daughter  while 
the  girl  sat  thinking.  The  countenance  of  neither 
changed  when  at  last  the  girl  broke  silence  and 
said,  very  steadily,  "I  might  go  in  the  spring, 
mother.  But  I'm  going  to  stay  here  this  winter. 
If  I've  got  any  trouble,  I  can't  run  away  from  it, 
and  I  wouldn't  if  I  could.  If  the  trouble  is  here, 
the  help  is  here,  too,  I  presume."  After  a  little 
pause,  she  added,  "I  don't  want  you  should  speak 
to  me  about  it  again,  mother — ever." 

The  mother  said  nothing,  but  awkwardly  rose, 
and  moved  shyly  to  where  her  daughter  sat.  Her 
mouth  trembled,  but,  whatever  intent  she  had,  she 
ended  by  merely  laying  on  the  girl's  head  her  large, 
toil-worn,  kitchen-coarsened  hand,  with  its  bony 
knuckles  and  stubbed,  broken  nails.  She  let  it  rest 
there  a  moment  and  then  went  softly  out  of  the 
room. 

256 


Chapter  XV 

IN  an  orchestra  chair  at  the  theater  sat  a  stout, 
good  -  natured  -  looking  gentleman,  iron  gray 
where  he  was  not  bald,  with  a  double  chin 
smooth-shaven  between  iron-gray  whiskers,  and 
beside  him  sat  a  lady  somewhat  his  junior  in  ap 
pearance,  pale  and  invalid-like,  to  whom  the  strong 
contrast  of  her  silvery  hair  and  her  thick,  dark 
eyebrows  gave  a  singular  distinction;  from  some 
little  attentions  and  neglects  it  could  be  seen  that 
they  were  husband  and  wife.  The  husband  seemed 
tranquilly  expectant,  and  the  wife  nervously  so, 
and  as  they  talked  together,  waiting  for  the  curtain 
to  rise,  he  spoke  in  a  slow,  rich,  easy  voice,  with  a 
smile  of  amiable  humor,  while  she  had  a  more  eager 
and  sarcastic  air,  which  at  times  did  not  veil  a  real 
anxiety  of  feeling. 

"And  that  is  just  where  you  misconceive  the 
whole  affair,"  the  lady  was  saying. 

"I  don't  see,"  said  the  gentleman. 

"Why,"  demanded  the  lady,  despairingly,  "can't 
you  imagine  a  woman's  liking  to  triumph  over 
people  with  her  beauty,  and  yet  meaning  it  to  be  a 
purely  aesthetic  triumph?" 

"No,  I  can't,"  said  the  gentleman,  with  placid 
candor. 
17  257 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"Well,  women  can,"  said  the  lady,  conclusively, 
and  the  gentleman  submitted  in  silence. 

Presently  he  asked,  "  Isn't  she  rather  old  for  a 
novice?" 

"She's  twenty-six,  if  you  call  that  old.  She's  a 
novice  to  the  stage,  but  she's  been  an  actress  all 
her  life." 

The  gentleman  laughed  in  the  contented  fashion 
of  gentlemen  who  think  their  wives  are  wits,  and 
said:  "I  think  you're  decidedly  hard  upon  her  to 
night,  Susan.  It  seems  to  me  you  have  been  more 
merciful  at  times." 

* '  Oh,  at  times !  I've  never  been  of  one  mind  about 
her  half  an  hour  together,  and  I  don't  expect  to 
be  hard  upon  her  the  whole  evening,  now.  The 
last  day  I  saw  her  at  the  farm,  as  I've  often  told 
you,  I  pitied  her  from  the  bottom  of  my  heart,  but 
before  we  said  good-by  I  suspected  that  I  had 
been  the  subject  of  one  of  her  little  dramatic 
effects.  Can't  you  imagine  a  person  who  really 
feels  all  she  thinks  she  ought  to  feel  at  any  given 
time?" 

"No,"  said  the  gentleman,  with  cheerful  resigna 
tion,  "that's  beyond  my  depth  again." 

"Well,  she's  that  kind;  or  I've  fancied  so  in  my 
skeptical  moods  about  her.  If  she  dramatizes  her 
part  to-night  half  as  well  as  she  used  to  dramatize 
herself,  she'll  be  a  great  actress.  But  that  remains 
to  be  seen.  When  I  first  heard  she  was  going  on  the 
stage,  it  seemed  like  a  clew  to  everything;  she  says 
she  always  wanted  to  be  an  actress;  and  I  felt  that 
it  was  a  perfect  inspiration.  It  would  give  her  ex- 

258 


MRS.   FARRELL 

citement  and  admiration,  and  it  would  multiply 
the  subjects  of  her  effects  to  any  extent.  It  always 
did  seem  a  ridiculous  waste  that  she  should  merely 
fascinate  one  man  at  a  time;  she  ought  to  have  had 
thousands.  But  I'm  not  so  certain,  now,  after  all, 
that  she's  found  her  destiny." 

"Why?" 

"Why,  a  stage  success  might  be  very  much  to  her 
taste,  while  she  mightn't  at  all  like  the  trouble  of 
making  it.  I  think  she  has  a  real  theatrical  genius, 
but  I  suppose  the  stage  takes  a  great  deal  of  self- 
denial  and  constancy,  and  she's  fickle  as  the  wind." 

"Oh,  come,  now,  Susan,  you  know  you  said 
yesterday  that,  after  all,  you  did  believe  she  had  a 
lasting  regard  for  William's  friend." 

"Yes,  that's  a  great  puzzle  and  mystery.  Per 
haps  it  was  because  she  had  broken  with  him.  I 
didn't  infer  from  anything  she  said  that  their 
acquaintance  now  was  of  anything  but  a  friendly 
sort.  I  wish  I  had  felt  authorized  to  ask  just  how 
it  was  renewed,"  said  the  lady,  regretfully. 

"I  wish  you  had.  I  should  have  liked  to  know. 
There  must  be  something  extraordinary  about  her 
to  enable  her  to  keep  him  for  a  friend  after  all  that 
happened." 

"Oh,  did  I  ever  pretend  there  wasn't  something 
extraordinary  about  her?  There  was  everything 
extraordinary  about  her!  And  there  are  times 
when  I  can't  help  admiring  a  sort  of  moral  heroism 
she  had.  I  think  she  was  fascinated  for  a  while 
with  the  dreadfulness  of  flirting  with  William  under 
the  circumstances;  but  not  one  woman  in  a  thou- 

259 


MRS.  FARRELL 

sand  would  have  had  the  courage  to  do  what  she 
did  when  she  found  it  was  becoming  serious  with 
him." 

"Very  likely.  But  I  have  a  higher  opinion  of 
women.  My  sense  of  right  and  wrong  has  not  been 
shaken,  like  some  people's,  by  this  enchantress.  I 
can't  help  thinking  it  might  not  have  been  so  rough 
on  him  if  her  moral  heroism  had  begun  a  little 
sooner — say  before  the  flirtation." 

"Oh,  the  more  I  think  about  it,  the  less  I  pity 
him  in  that  matter.  He  knew  perfectly  well  that 
he  was  doing  wrong.  Men  ought  to  do  right,  even 
if  it  doesn't  please  women." 

The  gentleman  bowed  his  bald  head  in  a  fit  of 
laughter.  "I  have  no  doubt  those  were  Eve's 
very  words  to  Adam,"  he  chuckled;  but  the  lady, 
without  laughing,  continued- 

"And  when  the  worst  had  come  to  the  worst  with 
Easton,  it  seems  she  didn't  spare  herself.  She  told 
him  everything." 

"Perhaps  she  might  have  spared  him  somewhat 
if  she  had  not  been  quite  so  frank." 

"It  was  her  duty  to  tell  him!"  rejoined  the  lady, 
sternly,  "and  I  honor  her  for  doing  it.  She  never 
could  have  gone  on  and  married  him,  with  all  that 
in  her  heart." 

"At  any  rate  she  didn't  go  on  and  marry  him. 
And  I  shall  always  contend  that  she  was  a  hardly 
used  woman;  engaging  herself  to  a  man  she  merely 
pitied,  under  the  mistaken  impression  that  she  was 
in  love  with  him,  and  then — when  she  found  that 
she  didn't  want  his  friend  either — dismissing  the 

260 


MRS.   FARRELL 

poor  fellow  with  a  final  misgiving  that  perhaps  she 
did  like  him,  after  all.  I  say  it's  a  case  of  unmerited 
suffering,  if  ever  there  was  one." 

"Oh,  it's  all  very  well  to  talk!  But  how  do  you 
reconcile  such  contradictions?" 

"I  don't.  But  I'm  certain  of  one  thing:  she 
wasn't  trying  any  of  her  little  dramatic  effects  on 
you  when  she  called  yesterday  and  made  you  her 
confidante."  The  gentleman  here  laughed  so  loud 
that  the  sound  of  his  own  voice  alarmed  him.  He 
looked  round,  and  saw  that  the  seats  about  them 
were  rapidly  filling  up,  and  he  fell  to  studying  his 
play-bill  with  conscious  zeal. 

By  and  by  he  turned  again  to  his  wife,  and 
whispered,  "I  don't  think  William's  peace  of  mind 
was  permanently  affected  by  his  romance  with  your 
friend ;  he  appeared  to  be  in  good  spirits  the  other 
day  when  I  saw  him  in  New  York,  and  was  taking 
a  good  deal  of  interest  in  the  fine  arts,  I  fancied, 
from  his  behavior  to  your  little  protegee." 

"William  has  been  very  polite  and  very  good;  I 
shall  always  feel  grateful  to  him  for  his  kindness  to 
her.  He  must  have  found  it  difficult  at  first;  she's 
very  odd  and  doesn't  invite  attention,  though  of 
course  she's  glad  of  it,  at  heart.  Yes,  it  was  very, 
very  considerate,  and  I  shall  take  it  as  the  greatest 
favor  that  William  could  have  done  me." 

"Well,  I  don't  know.  He  didn't  seem  to  be  re 
garding  the  affair  in  the  light  of  a  self-sacrifice. 
Suppose  he  had  rather  lost  the  sense  of  it's  being  a 
favor  to  you?" 

"I  should  like  that  all  the  better." 
261 


MRS.  FARRELL 

Those  who  remember  the  impression  made  among 
people  who  knew  of  her,  by  the  announcement  that 
Mrs.  Farrell  was  going  upon  the  stage,  will  recall 
the  curiosity  which  attended  her  appearance  in 
Boston,  after  her  debut  in  a  Western  city,  where  she 
had  played  a  season.  There  is  always  something 
vastly  pitiable  in  the  first  attempts  of  a  woman  to 
please  the  public  from  the  stage;  this  is  especially 
the  case  if  she  is  not  to  the  theater  born,  and  con 
fronts  in  her  audience  the  faces  she  has  known  in 
the  world ;  and  her  audience  may  have  felt  a  pecul 
iar  forlornness  in  Mrs.  Farrell's  position:  at  any 
rate  it  showed  itself  the  kindest  of  houses,  and 
seized  with  eager  applause  every  good  point  of  her 
performance.  Her  beauty  in  itself  was  almost 
sufficient  to  achieve  success  for  her.  It  had  never 
appeared  to  greater  advantage.  During  the  first 
two  acts,  it  seemed  to  prosper  from  moment  to  mo 
ment,  under  all  those  admiring  eyes,  like  the  imme 
diate  gift  of  Heaven,  as  if  she  were  inspired  to  be 
more  and  more  beautiful  by  her  consciousness  of 
her  beauty's  power;  and  whether  she  walked  or 
sat,  or  only  stirred  in  some  chosen  posture  amid  the 
volume  of  her  robes,  she  expressed  a  grace  that 
divinely  fascinated.  Her  girlish  presence  enabled 
her  to  realize  that  Juliet  to  many  whose  sensitive 
ideal  refused  the  robust  pretensions  of  more  mature 
actresses;  she  might  have  played  the  part  well  or 
not,  but  there  could  be  no  question  but  she  looked 
it.  She  had  costumed  it  with  a  splendor  which  the 
modern  taste  might  have  accused  of  overdressing, 
but  which  was  not  discordant  with  a  poetic  sense  of 

262 


MRS.  FARRELL 

the  magnificence  of  mediaeval  Verona.  Her  Juliet 
was  no  blond,  Gretchen-like  maiden  in  blue  and 
white,  but  an  impassioned  southern  girl  in  the 
dark  reds  and  rich  greens  that  go  well  with  that 
beauty;  she  might  have  studied  her  dress  from 
that  of  some  superb  patrician  in  a  canvas  of 
Cagliari.  But  with  her  beauty,  her  grace,  and 
her  genius  for  looking  and  dressing  the  char 
acter,  her  perfect  triumph  ended ;  there  was  some 
thing  perplexingly  indefinite  in  the  nature  or  the 
cause  of  her  failure,  at  those  points  where  she 
failed.  To  some  she  simply  appeared  unequal 
to  a  sustained  imagination  of  the  character. 
Others  thought  her  fatigued  by  the  physical 
effort,  which  must  be  a  very  great  one.  Perhaps 
no  one  was  of  a  very  decided  mind  about  her 
performance. 

"It  was  good,  yes — and  it  wasn't  good,  either," 
said  one  of  those  critical  spirits,  rather  commoner 
in  Boston  than  elsewhere,  who  analyze  and  refine 
and  re-refine  and  shrink  from  a  final  impression, 
with  a  perseverance  that  leaves  one  in  doubt 
whether  they  have  any  opinion  about  the  matter. 
"I  should  say  she  had  genius,  yes;  genius  for  some 
thing — I  don't  know;  I  suppose  the  drama.  I 
dare  say  I  saw  her  without  the  proper  perspective; 
I  was  crowded  so  close  to  her  by  what  I'd  heard  of 
her  off  the  stage,  don't  you  know.  I  don't  think 
the  part  was  well  chosen;  and  yet  she  did  some 
things  uncommonly  well;  all  that  passionate  love- 
making  of  the  first  part  was  magnificent ;  but  there 
was  some  detracting  element,  even  there — I  don't 

263 


MRS.  FARRELL 

know  what;  I  suppose  she  didn't  let  you  think 
enough  of  Juliet;  you  couldn't  help  thinking  how 
very  charming  she  was,  herself;  she  realized  the 
part  the  wrong  way.  There  was  inspiration  in  it, 
and  I  should  say  study;  yes,  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  study;  but,  after  all,  it  wasn't  so  much  art  as  it 
was  nature  and  artifice.  It  wanted  smoothness, 
unity;  perhaps  that  might  come,  by  and  by.  She 
had  a  very  kind  house;  you  know  what  our  audi 
ences  usually  are;  they  wouldn't  turn  the  thumb 
down,  but  they'd  make  an  unlucky  gladiator  wish 
they  would.  But  they  were  very  good  to  her,  last 
night,  and  applauded  her  hits  like  a  little  man.  She 
didn't  seem  to  have  given  herself  a  fair  chance. 
Perhaps  she  wasn't  artistically  large  enough  for  the 
theater.  I  shouldn't  have  said,  at  first,  that  she 
was  particularly  suggestive  of  the  home  circle; 
very  likely,  if  I'd  met  her  off  the  stage,  I  should 
have  pronounced  her  too  theatrical;  and  yet  there 
was  a  sort  of  appealing  domesticity  about  her,  after 
all — especially  in  her  failures.  It's  a  pity  she 
couldn't  take  some  particular  line  of  the  profession, 
in  which  she  could  somehow  produce  a  social  effect, 
don't  you  know!  I'll  tell  you  what;  she  could  do 
something  perfectly  charming  in  the  way  of  what 
they  call  sketches — character  sketches — little  mor 
sels  of  drama  that  she  could  have  all  to  herself,  with 
the  audience  in  her  confidence — a  sort  of  partner  in 
the  enterprise,  like  the  audience  at  private  the 
atricals.  That's  it;  that's  the  very  thing!  She'd 
be  the  greatest  possible  success  in  private  the 
atricals." 

264 


MRS.   FARRELL 

"Well,  Robert,  it's  better  than  I  ever  dreamt  she 
could  do,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert,  as  they  drove  home 
from  the  theater.  "But  what  a  life  for  a  woman! 
How  hard  and  desolate  at  the  best.  Well,  she's 
sufficiently  punished!" 

"Yes,"  said  her  husband,  "it's  a  great  pity  they 
couldn't  somehow  make  up  their  minds  to  marry 
each  other." 

"Never!  There  are  things  they  can  never  get 
over." 

' '  Oh,  people  get  over  all  sorts  of  things.  And  even 
according  to  your  own  showing,  she  behaved  very 
well  when  it  came  to  the  worst." 

"Yes,  I  shall  always  say  that  of  her.  But  she 
was  to  blame  for  it's  coming  to  the  worst.  No,  a 
whole  lifetime  wouldn't  be  enough  to  atone  for 
what  she's  done." 

"It  wouldn't,  in  a  romance.  But  in  life  you  have 
to  make  some  allowance  for  human  nature.  I  had 
no  idea  she  was  so  charming." 

"Robert,"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert,  sternly,  "do  you 
think  it  would  be  right  for  a  woman  to  be  happy 
after  she  had  made  others  so  wretched?" 

"Well,  not  at  once.  But  I  don't  see  how  her  re 
maining  unhappy  is  to  help  matters.  You  say  that 
you  really  think  she  does  like  him,  after  all?" 

"She  would  hardly  talk  of  anything  else — where 
he  was,  and  what  he  saw,  and  what  he  said.  Yes, 
I  should  say  she  does  like  him." 

"Then  I  don't  see  why  he  shouldn't  come  back 
from  Europe  and  marry  her,  when  she  makes  her 
final  failure  on  the  stage.  I  would,  in  his  place." 

265 


MRS.  FARRELL 

"My  dear,  you  know  you  wouldn't!" 

"Well,  then,  he  would  in  my  place.  Have  it  your 
own  way,  my  love." 

Mr.  Gilbert  seemed  to  think  he  had  made  a 
joke,  but  his  wife  did  not  share  his  laugh. 

"Robert,"  she  said,  after  a  thoughtful  pause,  "the 
lenient  way  in  which  you  look  at  her  is  worse  than 
wrong;  it's  weak." 

"Very  likely,  my  dear;  but  I  can't  help  feeling 
it's  a  noble  weakness.  Why,  of  course  I  know  that 
she  spread  a  ruin  round,  for  a  while,  but,  as  you 
say,  it  seems  to  have  been  more  of  a  ruin  than  she 
meant;  and  there's  every  probability  that  she's 
been  sorry  enough  for  it  since." 

"Oh!  And  so  you  think  such  a  person  as  that 
can  change  by  trying — and  atone  for  what  she's 
done  by  being  sorry  for  it!"  said  Mrs.  Gilbert,  with 
scorn. 

"Well,  Susan,  I  should  not  like  to  be  such  a 
heathen  as  not  to  think  so,"  responded  her  hus 
band,  with  an  assumption  none  the  less  intolerable 
because,  while  his  position  was  in  itself  impregnable, 
it  left  a  thousand  things  to  be  said. 


THE   END 


BOOKS  ON  TRAVEL 

By  WILLIAM  DEAN  HOWELLS 


ROMAN  HOLIDAYS,  AND  OTHERS 
Illustrated 

LONDON  FILMS 
Illustrated 

CERTAIN  DELIGHTFUL  ENGLISH   TOWNS 
Illustrated 

SEVEN  ENGLISH  CITIES 
Illustrated 

FAMILIAR  SPANISH  TRAVELS 
Illustrated 

A  LITTLE  SWISS  SOJOURN 
Illustrated 

MY  YEAR  IN  A  LOG  CABIN 
Illustrated 


HARPER  &   BROTHERS 
NEW  YORK       ESTABLISHED  1817       LONDON 


NOVELS  OF 

THOMAS    HARDY 


The  New  Thin-Paper  Edition  of  the  greatest 
living  English  novelist.     Red  Limp-Leather. 


DESPERATE  REMEDIES 

FAR  FROM    THE  MADDING   CROWD 

A  GROUP  OF  NOBLE  DAMES 

THE  HAND  OF  ETHELBERTA 

JUDE   THE  OBSCURE 

A  LAODICEAN 

LIFE'S  LITTLE  IRONIES 

THE  MAYOR  OF  CASTERBRIDGE 

A  PAIR  OF  BLUE  EYES 

THE  RETURN  OF   THE  NATIVE 

TESS  OF   THED'URBERVILLES 

THE   TRUMPET  MAJOR 

TWO  ON  A   TOWER 

UNDER   THE  GREENWOOD    TREE 

THE  WELL-BELOVED 

WESSEX   TALES 

THE  WOODLANDERS 

HARPER  &  BROTHERS 
NEW  YORK       ESTABLISHED  1817       LONDON 


DAY  USE 

TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 


LD  21A-60m-7,'66 
(G4427slO)476B 


.General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


'- 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


